OFC Champions League - last updated on 4 December 2008
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Competition name: OFC Champions League
Foundation: 1987
Continent: Oceania
Website: www.oceaniafootball.com
A bit of history:
The OFC Champions League is the premier club football competition in Oceania and is the region's equivalent of the UEFA Champions League. It is also known as the O-League. The OFC Champions League has commenced its inaugural season in 2007 and replaced the previous Oceania Club Championship.
The recent incarnations of the tournament, especially from 1999 onwards, have been organised by the Oceania Football Confederation in order to determine the Oceania representative at the FIFA Club World Cups (formerly called Club World Championships), although the Wollongong Wolves did not participate in a Club World Championship due to the cancellation of that particular tournament.
The 2006 tournament was held in New Zealand and won by Auckland City FC; a qualifying tournament was held earlier in Fiji involving the national club champions in relatively weaker nations in football. Recently there have been calls for New Zealand based A-league franchise Wellington Phoenix to join the competition.
It had been proposed that the Oceania champions would not get direct entry to the main round of the 2006 Club World Championship, instead having to play a preliminary knock out game against the host (Japanese) champions for entry into the main tournament. However FIFA president Sepp Blatter was unable to get the necessary support for the new format and as a result Oceania retained a direct entry into the 2006 Club World Championship. However, in March 2007, the FIFA executive committee introduced a qualifying playoff between the 2007 OFC Champions League champion and the host nation's 2007 J.League champion.
Competition crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
OFC Champions League
