F**k you FIFA!

[CrashedCarDriver]

well being an aussie i like to say thanks for nothing, mr sepp blatter has no balls at all to bow to pressure by going back on his decision to get rid of the 1 single measly oceania team

with the vote being 22 to 1 i believe there was a fair bit of corruption by mafia bosses and drug leaders involved in giving their south american and european countries the chance give them more dirty money to deal with their cocaine and heroin trades

soccer's a sport for pretentious wankers anyway, why the hell would you pay 150 million pounds to someone who can cross the ball better than anyone?

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

umm...ok...

I'd like to see New Zealand in the World Cup Finals as much as everyone else, but sometimes I think that the fact that they aren't there means they simply aren't good enough. Sure, it's unfair, but if NZ want to go to the World Cup, the answer is simple - win the playoff.

edit: I've read a suggestion of having world groups to make the finals more interesting. of course, it wouldn't take off, because no way in hell would england want to come down to play fiji or malawi go to germany, but it's possibly the best way to decide who qualifies.

 

[brettig]

yertle, this aint about NZ...

Ideally I think Australia should directly qualify through the Asian or North American qualifying groups.

No team should have to playoff without first having the chance to qualify automatically.

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

I was going to make some joke about New Zealand being Oceanian champs, but I realised there's a bit of a point to that. If Oceania were given a direct spot, that's more or less a free spot for Australia. Let's face it, when American Samoa, Vanuatu or Tonga qualify for the World Cup all of us will be dead. The only team that can challenge the Socceroos are NZ, but I'm guessing the Oceanian Championships Austraila fielded a weak team anyway.

I like brettig's idea where the Oceanians are grouped with Asia. That would level the playing field, I guess.

 

[Sexy Man]

I thought soccer was ment to be the WORLD game, not the south american or eurpoean game. Countires like Iran and Saudi Arabia qualifiy pretty easliy, yet Oceania has to play off against south america, the biggest and most sucessful region in soccer. How the hell is the region supposed to develop to be able to compete with these giants? I'm as one eyed as you get when it comes to supporting Australia. But I would rather see NZ or some other country in the region get into the world cup than some south american country. This would at least promote the game in the region.

No matter who it was, they'd be the under dog anyhow, so I'd back'em.