The Oceania Football Confederation is poised to host its first international Beach Soccer tournament following the announcement that the scheduled OFC leg of the Asian Football Confederation qualifying tournament for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup has been cancelled.
Tahiti will now host the event in September, with a purpose-built facility set to be constructed on the island of Moorea.
Earlier this year the world governing body, together with Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) proposed a joint AFC/ OFC qualifying tournament be held in Dubai, UAE in May.
At the OFC extra-ordinary congress in Moorea, Tahiti four teams – Cook Islands, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu – were selected to compete with the winner set to travel to Brazil in December for the pinnacle event of Beach Soccer.
After further analysis BSWW approached OFC to explore the possibility of OFC hosting the preliminary competition allowing more OFC teams to participate, giving the Confederation an opportunity to promote the sport within the region.
Following a meeting with FIFA, BSWW and the OFC in Zurich, all parties have agreed on the new format and venue of the OFC preliminary competition for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.
2006 OFC Beach Soccer Championship
Dates
31 August – 3 September 2006
Venue
Moorea, Tahiti
Teams
6 teams from OFC – being the 4 teams that were originally selected namely Cook Islands, New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
A team from Tahiti will be added and the sixth team will be an invitational team from Europe organised by OFC and BSWW to promote the tournament and the sport.
Format
Two groups of 3 teams playing round-robin with the winner of each pool in playing in the final.
The winner will advance to the 2006 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup – Brazil in November.
Size of Delegation
10 players and 2 officials
The Local Organising Committee will provide a tournament doctor and physiotherapist which will be available to all teams during the competition.
Although an analysis of other host nations within OFC were made it was decided by OFC that Tahiti will be the host of this tournament because they are the only national association who can ensure OFC and BSWW that they have the appropriate logistics for this competition such as television, suitable accommodation, internal transport, and flights from other OFC countries, marketing, sponsorship and local organisation without OFC incurring any cost for this tournament.
In particular, Tahiti has the ability to cover the event on television (involving 6 cameras) in accordance with the BSWW specifications for ESPN and Eurosport – free of charge.
FIFA has since approved a Seminar for Beach Soccer/Futsal involving three participants from each OFC national association to be held in Tahiti originally in August 2006 however it makes sense to have this Seminar during the Beach Soccer qualifying competition. Therefore this FIFA Seminar for Beach Soccer/Futsal will be held in Tahiti from 1 September to 4 September 2006.