#oceania-football

#oceania-football

"A lot of things have to fall in place before I think we're ready to expand," says Larman. "But certainly the dream is to get to a larger number of clubs. "The success of the league will depend on strength of the clubs - so all have strong community links or ingrained community involvement. "That's going to be key for them to have financial success, with big portfolios of commercial partners and a strong team off the pitch which is then generating a lot of money to invest in the first team and youth programmes."

Australia compete in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) after quitting the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) in 2005 in order to simplify their path to World Cup qualification. At the time, the best team in Oceania qualifying had to face a South American team in a two-leg playoff to reach the World Cup, while Asia had four automatic qualifying spots and a play-off. The Socceroos had lost out on World Cup qualification via the inter-confederation play-offs in 1986, 1994, 1998 and 2002.