The OFC Champions League is the premier men's club football competition in Oceania. 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, 13 OFC titles have been won by clubs from New Zealand, one by a Papua New Guinean club and one by a New Caledonian club.
Trophies for OFC tournament winners are made by London-based silversmiths Thomas Lyte.[1]
History
Oceania Club Championship and OFC Champions League Winners
This article is missing information about some editions of the tournament. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (January 2022)
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, semifinals and final. The tournament usually lasted about 10 days, with matches being played every 2 days.
At first, this competition was played as a single playoff match between champions of New Zealand and Australia. That competition was held in 1987 and Adelaide City won the inaugural season. Then 12 years 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 and Lautoka. Nine teams took part, with Australian side South Melbourne winning the trophy. They also qualified for the following year's FIFA Club World Cup.
The next competition was held two years later, with an Australian team again winning the title. Wollongong Wolves won it, beating Vanuatu representative Tafea in the final. Two more editions were held under this name and format, with Sydney and Auckland City winning titles. OFC decided to change the competition format and name, so that since 2007 the competition is known as the OFC Champions League.
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 FIFA Club World Cup, 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, 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 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 and renamed the Fiji Airways OFC Champions League in that season.[2]
Another format change came in 2017 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 semifinal stage. The semifinals and final were both played on a home-and-away basis. Following the success of the 2017 season, the OFC added a quarterfinal round for the 2018 edition, meaning that the top two teams from each group qualified for the knock-out stage.
The 2019 final, Hienghène Sport–AS Magenta (both from New Caledonia), marked the first time in the history of the competition that there was no side from New Zealand present.
Format
Qualification
The OFC Champions League has in its current format having 8 teams in the group stage, where single rounds are played in two groups, so that the 2 best placed teams in each group qualify for the knockout stage.
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 2 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+.[3][4]
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.
.png){kind=logo}
Auckland City (11th title)
2024 OFC Champions League
