Oceania Football Photo: Phototek
The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) says 13 clubs are now in contention to be part of the inaugural OFC Professional League, including four from New Zealand.
A total of 24 clubs expressed an interest in being part of the new eight team league, which is due to start in January 2026.
The short-listed 13 clubs will continue to the club licensing phase.
There are 11 clubs from six OFC Member Associations including two from Fiji, two from Papua New Guinea, one each from Solomon Islands, Tahiti, and Vanuatu, with the other two clubs from Australia.
The 13 clubs will be reduced to eight and there will be a maximum of two entries from a single OFC Member Association and one from Australia.
OFC Professional League project manager Stuart Larman said any club that wanted to participate in the league had to meet the requirements to receive a license.
"We expect the quality of submissions to continue at the same level as we have seen in the first phase of the Club Application Process. If that happens, we will have 13 clubs licensed and eight slots available in the OFC Professional League 2026. In countries where more than one club has attained a license, we have a defined methodology to distinguish between the clubs based on their Club Licensing submissions," Larman said.
The OFC Club Licensing Committee will pass on its recommendations to the OFC Executive Committee in August and the eight selected clubs will be confirmed in September.
The competition will run from early January until the end of May with each club playing a minimum of 17 matches.
There will be five circuit series rounds at various Pacific locations in a double round-robin format before the teams are split into two playoff groups, Leaders and Challengers.
The leaders playoff group will see the top four teams compete for three semi-final spots. The challengers playoff group will see the top team after three round-robin matches compete against the bottom team from the leaders playoff group for the final semi-final spot.
The semi-finals and the grand final will be single leg matches.
