All Whites learn who they’ll meet in first stage of FIFA World Cup qualifiers

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New Zealand’s All Whites will play Tahiti, Vanuatu and the winner of a preliminary round in their group at this year’s FIFA World Cup qualifying series.

This follows a draw held at FIFA’s Zurich headquarters in which the Oceania Football Confederation’s (OFC) 11 full-member nations have discovered the road that could lead to them being one of the 48 teams at the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.

France’s 1998 FIFA World Cup winner and FIFA Legend Christian Karembeu, who was born in New Caledonia, helped Dame Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer, with the draw.

Dame Sarai Bareman introduces the draw, streamed live by FIFA+. Photo credit: Harold Cunningham / FIFA.

Based on the men’s FIFA/Coca-Cola world ranking of July 2024, the four lowest-ranked teams — Samoa, Cook Islands, American Samoa and Tonga — will compete in round one’s knockout-match format in September in Apia to decide which of the quartet joins the seven highest-ranked sides in the second round.

The winner will join New Zealand in Group B.

Christian Karembeu and Dame Sarai Bareman perform the draw. Photo credit: Harold Cunningham / FIFA.

FIFA World Cup OFC qualifying draw

Group A

  • Solomon Islands
  • Fiji
  • New Caledonia
  • Papua New Guinea

Group B

  • New Zealand
  • Tahiti
  • Vanuatu
  • Winner round 1

Round 1 fixtures

# indicates OFC order of rankings

Cook Islands (#8) v Tonga (#11)

American Samoa (#9) v Samoa (#10)

Winners of those games will meet to decide who goes through to Group B.

Qualifying series format

Each country will play every opponent in the group once in matches staged in October and November, with the top two teams from each group progressing to semi-final ties in March 2025.

The Group A winners will play the Group B runners-up and Group B winners will play the Group A runners-up. The winners of those matches will then go head-to-head for the first-ever guaranteed ticket to a FIFA World Cup for an OFC nation.

The runner-up in that contest will progress to the FIFA intercontinental play-off tournament and a chance to give Oceania an historic second FIFA World Cup representative in Canada, Mexico and the United States in 2026.

The host venues for match day three, four, five, six and seven are yet to be determined.

Match dates

Dates and venues for the Oceania FIFA World Cup qualifiers have yet to be confirmed.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful for the help of OFC Media in providing information for this story.

This story was first published on July 18, 2024.

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