The New Zealand amateurs are number 5.072 on Opta's power ranking for football clubs around the world and were at the same stage as number six Bayern Munich. Criticism of their participation must be aimed at FIFA and the OFC, not in this team of unpaid fighters.
The Globe waited more than 95 years for the first 10-0 demolition on a World Cup for national teams or clubs, but it only took two games for the newly formatted FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) to deliver a record-breaking thump.
Bayern Munich, who surprised the world when he opened the new UEFA Champions League last year by placing nine past a helpless Dinamo Zagreb, showed a similar ruthlessness against their Kiwi opponents in Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon.
Much of the online spot was focused on the social media of Auckland City, explains a performance that, according to many, the time of their opponents, was not worthy, let alone the ones looking from home.
Such a comment is not earned for a club that comes from a country without a professional football competition and that qualified for the tournament via the path offered to them by FIFA and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
The expansion of the FIFA of the CWC from seven clubs to 32, which could be appropriately considered cynically as a desperate loss of an organization that reported a financial loss of more than $ 600 million (USD) in 2024, also serves as a fantastic opportunity to grow the club game in new target marks in a huge target marks in new target markets in a huge target marktten Target markets with enormous target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with huge target markets with a huge target markets with huge Pools, Southeast, souther, east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -eastern -eastern -east -eastern -eastern -eastern -east -eastern -eastern -eastern -eastern -eastern -east -eastern -eastern -eastern -east -eastern -east -eastern -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -east -one -Africa.
With the aforementioned expansion, an obligation came to allocate the long forgotten Oceania with guaranteed view by one automatic qualification reduction, which in honesty is not an increase in the existing Single OFC slot that Auckland City had already occupied in 10 of the first 20 iterations of the tournament, including a third place in 2014.
Despite their regular performances at the CWC, the increased attention means the new format that efforts must be made again by FIFA and the football media to tell the story of the modest background of Auckland City.
A commercial seller, a broker and an engineer walk into a (cross) bar …
No, that is not the start of an old -fashioned joke, but rather three of the full -time professions under the starting XI of Auckland City against Bayern Munich.
The players and coaching staff play without wages, outside of a weekly maximum stipend of ~ $ 90 to cover basic costs, such as a membership of the gym, and many work nine to five jobs before they are aware of a week night training at the 3,500 capacity Kiwitea maintain all the tribes of all the random-het facilities of the facilities of the random-het facilities, which is the rammation-het facilities, the random-het facilities, which has the rammation-het facilities, which is the random-het facilities, which has the random-het facilities, which is the rammation-het facilities, which is the random-het facilities, which has the random-het facilities, which is the random-het facility, which is the random-het facilities-het facilities, which is the random-het facilities-het facilities, which are the random-het facilities-het facilities, which are the random-het facilities. Corres of the Worldwork.
For those players with young families, and/or the members of Auckland City Squad who have to commute for a maximum of 90 minutes to go during training and home games, it is a hugely difficult lifestyle.
Many of their first-choice players take unpaid leave from their full-time jobs to play in the US, in which some have exhausted all their paid leave to participate in the OFC Champions League in the capital of Solomon Island, who organized the tournament over a two-week period.
“It's not easy,” striker Angus Kilkolly told AFP.
“It is four weeks of leave, but I have no annual leave of four weeks, so there is unpaid leave there.”
Their most important matchday team of the OFC Champions League -final was able to reach the CWC, but some extra squadron members could not have the time to do this.
How did an amateur club in the first place end up at the World Cup?
The only two professional football clubs of Oceania, Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix from New Zealand, both play in the A-League of Australia in the absence of a professional competition in New Zealand.
Their participation in a club competition run by a member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) – Australia – means that the OFC both is not eligible to be eligible to play in their own Champions League, while the AFC also forbids both Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix on the basis of their mother -in -law that is not a member of the AFC.
That means that the best two clubs of New Zealand have no path at all through the CWC, and it is left to Auckland City to take what is available for them.
The chances of Australia to compete on a future CWC are also slim – their professional clubs are far behind those of cash -rich golf countries, both on and next to the field – but they have at least a chair at the table via the AFC Champions League.
The players of Auckland City are not only refused a salary for their toils at this tournament, but at this stage are not even guaranteed to be part of the estimated $ 5 million Prizemoney that comes on their way for playing in the group phase, with the club and new -sealing about the Fondses involved in the Fondsesdesktektekteks about the Fondsesdekktektekteks about the Fondsesdeskketes this year. getting slice of the rich.
Why can't Oceania have a professional competition?
It is much easier said than done, but efforts are now at least delivered behind closed doors.
At the beginning of 2025, the OFC expressions of interest in a new 'OFC Pro League' found, in which eight clubs in the Pacific Ocean participated in a double round Robin (each 14 matches) before they split into a top-four champion group and Bottom-four challenge group, with three and a semi-final from the groups.
A reported 24 entries were made to the OFC of various clubs, including some semi-professional sides from nearby Australia, which, in the absence of any possibility to be promoted to the top-tier A-League, were willing to give up their own local matches to start the considerable money in their attempt in their attempt in their attempt.
The new Pro League is intended to become the new qualifying roads to both the CWC and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, a competition of six teams that will replicate the previous format of the CWC, while the long -term ambition is to renovate professional football clubs on the other side of the Pacific through the investment.
The OFC got a killing blow when Auckland City refused the interest in the competition, and with the most successful club in the region that suddenly found a new road for millions of dollars on a four -yearly basis, few could blame them because they want to make their own future CWC qualification more difficult.
Professional outfits Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix have expressed the wish to participate in the competition as a road to future CWCs, but both clubs have already told the OFC that they should send reserve teams, planned the tournament in December-Januari, the peak period of the A-League season.
That would undermine the integrity of the competition, according to the OFC, which was reportedly furious by the half -committee of the two professional parties. Nevertheless, it can be commercial in their best interest to deal with it.
Auckland City deserves our love, not our spot
The players of Auckland City are proud that they are in the US to represent the “99.9% of football players who are not professional”, and 99.9% of us should be immediately behind them in their unforgettable journey.
Comment that they do not deserve to be there is valid if it is framed as a criticism of the tournament sized instead of being focused in the club because he simply indicated the opportunity that the tournament has awarded them.
At least until the OFC Pro League is well underway, there is a reasonable thing that it can be made that the OFC might have to go back to 0.5 slots instead of one, with Auckland City or another Oceanic club forced into an Interconfederation Playoff just when the New Zealand national team was a 32-Team.
But it is not the FIFA's task to be gatekeepers for the largest clubs in the world. Let us embrace the romance of the amateur hero that lives the children's dream that we have all shared.
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