Oceania Football Confederation to ‘redistribute’ FIFA Club World Cup prize money

Oceania Professional League football competition chiefs will redistribute prizemoney from future FIFA Club World Cup windfalls to ensure one club does not disproportionately benefit.

The new Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) league, which will kick off at Auckland’s Eden Park on January 17, will feature eight teams, including New Zealand clubs Auckland FC and South Island United.

The Pro League will supply Oceania’s representative to the next FIFA Club World Cup in 2029.

New Zealand national league club Auckland City represented Oceania at the 2025 Club World Cup in the United States where it earned $6 million as a participation fee and an extra $1.7 million for a draw with Boca Juniors in the group stages.

The 2025 Club World Cup had a prize money pot of $US1 billion ($NZ1.7 billion), shared among 32 clubs.

Any Oceania Pro League club reaping $NZ7.6 million - a figure likely to rise in 2029 - would be at a disproportionate advantage to their league rivals.

That is a situation the OFC is keen to avoid, judging from general secretary Franck Castillo’s comments to media before a “soft launch’’ of the new league in Auckland on Wednesday night.

He said the OFC would “redistribute some of the [prize] money… so we don’t unbalance the league”.

Castillo confirmed that only the seven Oceania clubs would be eligible for the Club World Cup spot. South Melbourne FC are also in the Pro League but they are an Australia club, affiliated to the Asian Football Confederation, and therefore ineligible.

While Castillo did not go into detail about the redistribution model, such a system has been used in Oceania before.

All New Zealand national league clubs got a share of the prize money earned when Auckland City (12 times) and Team Wellington (once in 2018) qualified for the Club World Cup finals in the former one team per confederation format.

Meanwhile, Castillo said while South Melbourne could not represent Oceania at a Club World Cup, the Australian club would be eligible to receive any prize money directly related to the Oceania Pro League.

The OFC’s executive committee approved Eden Park as the host for the first round of the league, to be played in five clusters from January to May 2026.

He said the full schedule would be announced later and confirmed the OFC was “exploring he option” of a round in Australia.

Castillo was “100% confident” the Pro League would be a success, saying it was eight years in the making.

He said Oceania was only confederation in world football without its own professional league and believed it was long overdue.

Castillo, a Frenchman, referred to how Christian Karembeu, from New Caledonia, had left the Pacific to play professionally and went on to win the 1998 World Cup with France.

“We’ve got many Christian Karembeus in the region, but we need to provide the right professional environment for them.”

He hoped the Pro League would help “elevate the football levels’’ of Oceania teams in all FIFA competitions.