The final eight teams vying for Oceania club football supremacy will soon learn their OFC Champions League 2022 group stage opposition through a draw confirmed for Thursday, 30 June.
The draw will take place at 1.00 pm NZT at the OFC Home of Football – Te Kahu o Kiwa in Auckland, New Zealand.
OFC Competitions Director, Chris Kemp will conduct proceedings, assisted by former Solomon Islands international Henry Fa’arodo, himself an OFC Champions League winner with Papua New Guinea’s Hekari United in 2010.
There is no seeding system for this edition of the OFC Champions League so each team will be drawn from a single pot of eight teams.
Teams will be drawn into two groups of four; Group A and Group B.
Teams drawn from the pot will be allocated to groups sequentially, the first team drawn going into Group A, the second into Group B, third into Group A, and so on, until the pot is empty, and all eight teams have been drawn.
Following the conclusion of the OFC Champions League National Playoffs on Saturday, June 25, the eight teams participating have now been confirmed.
Fiji’s Rewa FC, Papua New Guinea’s Lae City FC, Solomon Islands’ Central Coast FC, Tahiti’s AS Vénus and Vanuatu’s Galaxy FC all qualified via the National Playoff route, as did the most recent OFC Champions League winners, 2019 champions Hienghène Sport of New Caledonia.
Nikao Sokattak FC from the Cook Islands have been nominated to attend the finals tournament based on sporting merit, after ongoing travel restrictions and logistical challenges forced the cancellation of the OFC Champions League 2022 Qualifying Stage.
Auckland City FC round out the eight teams participating. The nine-time winners have been nominated by their respective MA to represent New Zealand as 2020–21 New Zealand Football Championship regular season winners.
Confirmed dates and locations for the OFC Champions League 2022 will be announced at a later date.
SOURCE: OFC/PACNEWS
