OFC’s presence at the 2025 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Grassroots Conference marked a purposeful step in strengthening relationships, building cultural bridges, and deepening shared understanding around children’s football across Asia and Oceania.
With all 44 AFC Member Associations represented, the gathering provided a unique opportunity for talanoa grounded in humility, respect, and a shared commitment to the wellbeing of 6-16 year-old players.
Representing Oceania was OFC Player Development Officer Phillip Pickering-Parker, who engaged in a series of structured conversations focused on how culture, context, and socialisation shape grassroots experiences.
The discussions explored participation-level environments, highlighting how federations across the region design awards, incentives, community festivals, and standards to support learning, enjoyment and belonging. Across three days of engagements, the emphasis remained on listening, understanding and drawing parallels that can support Oceania’s evolution and thinking.
These findings will help OFC as it begins to explore and develop a new Grassroots & Youth Football Charter and Player Development Guidelines. This initial work is helping to clarify what a culturally aligned, context-aware and child-centred quality assurance approach could look like across the Pacific.
A moment of cultural significance strengthened this commitment and OFC’s presence when Phillip presented an indigenous-designed playing shirt – symbolising ‘standing proudly in a chiefly cloak, to AFC Technical Director Andy Roxburgh. This gesture honoured a shared respect between confederations and the spirit of partnership.
Ultimately, the mission reaffirmed that while Asia and Oceania hold diverse cultures, geographies and football realities, the foundations of children’s football are universally human; connection, joy, safety and development.
By learning from AFC’s experiences and sharing Oceania’s own culturally anchored approaches, OFC continues to build collaborative pathways that will guide future standards, frameworks, and support mechanisms for Member Associations across the Pacific.