The OFC Men's Champions League is the premier men's club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

competition in

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. It is organised by the OFC, Oceania's football governing body. Beginning as the Oceania Club Championship (1987–2006), it has been organised since 2007 under its current format. The first four Club Championship titles were won by Australian clubs. Since 2006, when Australia left the OFC, 16 OFC titles have been won by clubs from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, one by a

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

n club and one by a

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

n club. Trophies for OFC tournament winners are made by London-based silversmiths

Thomas Lyte Thomas Lyte is an English luxury brand specialising in gold and silverware, sporting trophies and leather accessories. The company has designed, made or restored many well known trophies and medals, such as the football’s FA Cup, golf’s Ryder ...

History

Oceania Club Championship

The Oceania Club Championship was played in one or two venues, in one host country. There were two or three groups with single round-robin format, semi-finals and final. The tournament usually lasted about ten days, with matches being played every two days. At first, this competition was played as a single play-off match between champions of New Zealand and Australia. That competition was held in 1987 and

Adelaide City Adelaide City Football Club is a semi-professional soccer club based in Oakden, a north-eastern suburb of Adelaide. The club was a founding member of the now-defunct National Soccer League (NSL) and currently competes in the National Premier ...

won the inaugural season. Then a twelve year pause came, until the OFC organised the next, all-Oceania Cup. In January 1999, the Oceania Club Championship was held in the Fijian cities of

Nadi Nadi (, ) is the second-largest city in Fiji. It is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, and had a population of 59,707 at the most recent census, in 2017. Nadi is multiracial with many of its inhabitants Asians, India ...

and

Lautoka Lautoka (, ) is the second largest List of cities and towns in Fiji#List, metropolitan area in Fiji. It is on the west coast of the island of Viti Levu, in the Ba Province of the Western Division, Fiji, Western Division. Lying in the heart of ...

. Nine teams took part, with Australian side

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at the 2021 ...

winning the trophy. They also qualified for the following year's

FIFA Club World Cup The FIFA Club World Cup (FIFA CWC) is an international men's association football competition organised by the ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (FIFA), the sport's global sports governing body, governing body. The compe ...

. The next competition was held two years later, with an Australian team again winning the title. Wollongong Wolves won it, beating Vanuatu representative

Tafea Tafea is the southernmost of the six Provinces of Vanuatu, provinces of Vanuatu. The name is an acronym for the five main islands that make up the province: Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango and Aniwa. History Unlike the other provinces of V ...

in the final. Two more editions were held under this name and format, with

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and Auckland City winning titles. Sydney could not defend its title in 2006 as Australia left the OFC that year to join the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The main reasons were to face stronger competition, improve player development, and have a more reliable path to World Cup qualification, as Australia often dominated OFC teams but then struggled in intercontinental play-offs to qualify for the World Cup. For 2007 OFC decided to change the competition format and name, to being known as the OFC Champions League until 2024.

OFC Champions League

2007–2014

The OFC decided to change competition format, to make its main competition more interesting and more important to competing clubs. The first two seasons saw competition with two groups of three teams each, and from the third edition onwards it consists of two groups of four teams each. Group winners progress to the final, played in double playoff format, with the winner taking the title. Unlike its previous format, the OFC Champions League lasts more than a half year, starting in October and ending the following April. The OFC Champions League qualifies to

, entering the competition in the playoff round. For the 2012–13 season the OFC Champions League changed its format with the introduction of qualifying stage, with the champions of the four weakest leagues competing for a play-off spot with the representative of country with the worst record from the previous tournament. Later rather were also scheduling and format changes for the main tournament. That competition was played between March and May 2013 with introduction of semifinal stage and final played on neutral venue. The first OFC Champions League single leg final was played in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, and was the first OFC Champions League final between two teams from the same country, with Auckland City defeating Waitakere United to win its 5th title. The OFC Champions League saw another change for 2013–14 season, with the group stage played in a pre-determined location and the semifinals and final played on a home-and-away basis.

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

was selected as host. The Preliminary stage was played six months before the group stage, and the winner entered the group stage. In 2014, both finalists of the OFC Champions League participated in the OFC President's Cup, an invitational tournament organised by the OFC. However, President's Cup was held only once.

2014–present

In the 2014–15 season, the tournament was sponsored by

Fiji Airways Fiji Airways, formerly Air Pacific, is the flag carrier of Fiji. It operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 27 destinations, and has an extended network of 108 international destinations through its codeshare partners, includi ...

and renamed the ''Fiji Airways OFC Champions League'' for that season. Another format change came in

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

when the group stage was expanded to 16 teams, with the whole competition being played in one year (preliminary stage followed by group stage and later knock-out stage). Each of four groups was hosted by one of the teams from the group, meaning more countries and teams were included. Group winners qualified for the semi-finals. The semi-finals and final were both played on a home-and-away basis. Following the success of the 2017 season, the OFC added a quarter-final round for the

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

edition, meaning that the top two teams from each group qualified for the knockout stage. The 2019 final between New Caledonian sides Hienghène Sport and

AS Magenta AS Magenta is a New Caledonian Association football, football team playing at the top level. It is based in Nouméa. Their home stadium is Stade Numa-Daly Magenta. History Originally called the Nickel Nouméa Sports Association (Nouméa ASLN), th ...

marked the first time since

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

that there was no side from New Zealand qualified for the title-deciding tie. In 2024, the competition was renamed from OFC Champions League to OFC Men's Champions League.

Format

Qualification

The OFC Men's Champions League currently features eight teams split into two groups of four, with each team playing the others in their group once. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage, starting with the semi-finals. The number of teams that each federation enters into the OFC Champions League is based on the federations development criteria before the OFC, where the developed associations receive two places, which are Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu, and those considered developing associations receive a single place, where the associations are American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga. The current qualifying format for the group stage is determined by the two classifieds of the developed associations playing home and away games called ''National play-offs'', while the teams from the developing associations play against each other in round-robin regime in a centralized location, where the best-scoring team qualifies for the group stage.

Broadcasting

From the 2024 season, all games are live streamed on FIFA+.

List of finals

* The "Season" column refers to the season the competition was held, and

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s to the article about that season. * The wikilinks in the "Score" column point to the article about that season's final game.

Records and statistics

All-time table (Top 10 clubs)

* Number in parentheses show number of participations.

All-time table (countries)

* As of 9 November 2022. All matches including qualifying were taken into account with a game decided by penalties counted as draw. No awarded/withdrawn games were counted.

References

External links

OFC Official Website

Competition Regulation (2024)Archived
{{FIFA Club World Cup Champions League, OFC Oceanian championships Multi-national professional sports leagues