Partnerships with other confederations help football’s development in Oceania

Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is surely the least development continental football confederation in the world. They have been improving really fast in the past few years and they count with some partners to help in this development process: another continental confederations.

It is already known that OFC holds a partnership with Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) as the European association funds youth football development in Oceania with exchanges of football and tournament promotions in Europe or in the OFC region.

Estonia National Football Team is used to face the Pacific Islands countries. They played friendlies against Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu in 2017 and they also took part of 2019 OFC Youth Development Tournament held in Vanuatu. The Estonian side was ready to face New Caledonia in a friendly that was scheduled to take place in March but it was cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemics.

According to OFC president Lambert Maltock, they have made discussions and agreements with other confederations like Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) to assist OFC. An agreement was set to be signed in June but it was also postponed due to COVID-19.

Maltock also revealed in an exclusive interview with Oceania Football Center that there will be more youth tournaments and more friendly matches against AFC, UEFA and CONMEBOL nations once all agreements are signed.

OFC still has a long way to go in order to get closer to other confederations. However, the first steps are done. Now it is time to wait and check if these projects will bring some real development to Oceanian football.