FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification (OFC)

The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers (OFC), more commonly known as the OFC Beach Soccer Championship is the main championship for beach soccer in Oceania. The first championship was held in 2006 in Moorea, Tahiti, as was the 2009 tournament and as will be the 2011 tournament. The 2007 tournament was moved to Auckland, New Zealand. Only the winner of the competition qualifies for the following FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. The Solomon Islands are the most successful nation and have dominated the championships. In 2008, the Solomon Islands were automatically selected for the world cup as they were nominated as the best nation in the region, so no qualifiers were held.

Now that the world cup takes place every two years, so will the qualifiers, starting with the qualifiers for the 2011 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.

Format

The competition consists of the best four nations in Oceania. The countries play each other once in a group. Then the top two in the group play a final match to decide the winner, while the nations in third and fourth place in the group play a final third-place play off match. The winner of the championship will move on to play in the next FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.

Tournaments

Year	Location	Final			Third place match
		Champion	Score	Runner-Up	Third Place	Score	Fourth Place
2006	Moorea, Tahiti	Solomon Islands	6 – 2	Vanuatu	Tahiti	12 – 4	Cook Islands
2007	Auckland, New Zealand	Solomon Islands	5 – 3	Vanuatu	New Zealand	5 – 3	Tahiti
2008	Solomon Islands automatically selected, no qualifiers held
2009	Moorea, Tahiti	Solomon Islands	1 – 0	Vanuatu	Tahiti	6 – 3	Fiji
2011	Papeete, Tahiti	Tahiti	4 – 3	Solomon Islands	Fiji	N/A

Successful nations

Team	Titles	Runners-up	Third Place	Fourth Place
Solomon Islands	3 (2006, 2007, 2009)	1 (2011)	-	-
Tahiti	1 (2011)	-	2 (2006, 2009)	1 (2007)
Vanuatu	-	3 (2006, 2007, 2009)	-	-
Fiji	-	-	1 (2011)	1 (2009)
New Zealand	-	-	1 (2007)	-
Cook Islands	-	-	-	1 (2006)

Nations who have qualified for the world cup

These are the nations who have been successful enough in the competition to qualify to appear in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, to represent Oceania. The numbers in brackets shows how many times that country has qualified over the three years the tournament has been held.

•  Solomon Islands (3)
•  Tahiti (1)