The Oceania Football Confederation and Orakei Local Board of the Auckland Council are committed to moving forward with the development of the OFC Home of Football.

The two organisations met in June to talk about the OFC Home of Football, when OFC representatives assured the Ngahue Reserve landowner of their commitment not only to the development, but also the establishment of a long-term relationship between the two parties.

The discussions laid down the OFC vision for the property which currently has two artificial football fields, changing rooms and parking facilities completed.

OFC General Secretary Franck Castillo said the overarching objective for the Confederation is having two teams competing at the FIFA World Cup 2026.

“In order to achieve this we intend to continue to develop the site, albeit with a changed scope of works and time-frames,” Castillo said.

“The Home of Football will become a High Performance Centre for the region and the administrative headquarters for OFC.

“An architect will be appointed in August, and will work closely with both organisations to finalise how the site at Ngahue Reserve can best be utilised by both OFC and the local community going forward.”

Castillo also said plans are in the works to develop community programmes alongside the Orakei Local Board using the award-winning OFC Just Play Programme.

The revised scope of works will be presented to the Orakei Local Board in September this year with the intention to have the new building completed by the end of September 2019.

Kit Parkinson, Orakei Local Board chairman said this is great news for our community as our local football teams will continue to get secured daily access to these two high quality artificial playing fields.