REASON Australian National Team never took part in AFF Cup seniors revealed that even though they have joined AFF since 2013 will be discussed in this article. Since 2006, Australia has joined the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
The reason for Australia to join the AFC is very clear, namely to widen the chances of qualifying for the World Cup. Just to note, the AFC has four automatic qualification quota for the World Cup and one inter-confederation playoff.
(Australian national team qualify for the 2022 World Cup)
This is different from OFC, which does not have an automatic qualification ticket to the World Cup. OFC only got one interconfederation playoff ticket.
Since moving to the AFC, Australia has always qualified for the World Cup, starting from 2010, 2014, 2018 and most recently 2022. Despite joining the AFC in 2006, Australia only joined one of the federations in the AFC in 2013.
At that time, Australia chose to join the Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF). The reason Australia chose AFF was because it was geographically the most feasible compared to joining other federations.
Despite joining the AFF since 2013, Australia has never taken part in the senior AFF Cup. It is also a question among Southeast Asian football lovers. Investigate, the reason is because Southeast Asian teams are considered not on the same level as Australia.
The current FIFA rankings can be used as a reference. Australia is now ranked 39th in the world! Meanwhile, the team with the highest FIFA ranking in Southeast Asia is Vietnam which is ranked 97th in the world. Thailand alone ranks 111th in the world, Malaysia (147) and Indonesia (155).
As long as AFF members struggle to penetrate the world rankings of 100, Australia is reluctant to appear in the senior AFF Cup. This was revealed by a spokesman for the Australian Football Federation, in the early days of Australia joining the AFF.
“Until now, we don’t want to include our senior national team in the Suzuki Cup (AFF). However, Australia is determined to include the senior (junior) team and the futsal team in the AFF competition,” the spokesman quoted REUTERS as saying.
So far Australia It is indeed intense to appear in various age group tournaments such as the AFF Cup U-16, U-19 to futsal. The Australian U-16 national team has twice won the AFF U-16 Cup. Meanwhile, the Australian U-19 national team has been the best five times in the U-19 AFF Cup.
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