OFC Champions League

OFC Champions League
Organising body	OFC
Founded	1987
Region	Oceania
Number of teams	16 (group stage); 18 (total, from 11 associations)
Qualifier for	FIFA Club World Cup
Current champions	Auckland City (11 title); (2023)
Most successful team(s)	Auckland City (11 titles)
Television broadcasters	Eleven Sports (live streaming)
Website	Official website
	2024 OFC Champions League

The OFC Champions League, also known as the O-League, is the premier men's club football competition in Oceania. It is organised by the OFC, Oceania's football governing body. Beginning as the Oceania Club Championship (1987–2006), it has been organised since 2007 under its current format.

The first four Club Championship titles were won by Australian clubs. Since 2006, 13 OFC titles have been won by clubs from New Zealand, one by a Papua New Guinean club and one by a New Caledonian club.

Trophies for OFC tournament winners are made by London-based silversmiths Thomas Lyte.[1]

History and format

Oceania Club Championship

The Oceania Club Championship was played in one or two venues, in one host country. There were two or three groups with single round-robin format, semifinals and final. The tournament usually lasted about 10 days, with matches being played every 2 days.

At first, this competition was played as a single playoff match between champions of New Zealand and Australia. That competition was held in 1987 and Adelaide City won the inaugural season. Then 12 years pause came, until the OFC organised the next, all-Oceania Cup. In January 1999, the Oceania Club Championship was held in the Fijian cities of Nadi and Lautoka. Nine teams took part, with Australian side South Melbourne winning the trophy. They also qualified for the following year's FIFA Club World Cup.

The next competition was held two years later, with an Australian team again winning the title. Wollongong Wolves won it, beating Vanuatu representative Tafea in the final. Two more editions were held under this name and format, with Sydney and Auckland City winning titles. OFC decided to change the competition format and name, so that since 2007 the competition is known as the OFC Champions League.

2007–2014

The OFC decided to change competition format, to make its main competition more interesting and more important to competing clubs.

The first two seasons saw competition with two groups of three teams each, and from the third edition onwards it consists of two groups of four teams each. Group winners progress to the final, played in double playoff format, with the winner taking the title. Unlike its previous format, O-League lasts more than a half year, starting in October and ending the following April. The O-League winner qualifies to FIFA Club World Cup, entering the competition in the playoff round.

For the 2012–13 season O-League changed its format with the introduction of qualifying stage, with the champions of the four weakest leagues competing for a play-off spot with the representative of country with the worst record from the previous tournament. Later rather were also scheduling and format changes for the main tournament. That competition was played between March and May 2013 with introduction of semifinal stage and final played on neutral venue. First O-League one-legged final was played in Auckland, and was the first O-League final between two teams from the same country, with Auckland City defeating Waitakere United to win its 5th title.

The OFC Champions League saw another change for 2013–14 season, with the group stage played in a pre-determined location and the semifinals and final played on a home-and-away basis. Fiji was selected as host. The Preliminary stage was played six months before the group stage, and the winner entered the group stage.

In 2014, both finalists of the OFC Champions League participated in the OFC President's Cup, an invitational tournament organised by the OFC. However, President's Cup was held only once.

2014–present

In the 2014–15 season, the tournament was sponsored by Fiji Airways and renamed the Fiji Airways OFC Champions League in that season.[2]

Another format change came in 2017 when the group stage was expanded to 16 teams, with the whole competition being played in one year (preliminary stage followed by group stage and later knock-out stage). Each of four groups was hosted by one of the teams from the group, meaning more countries and teams were included. Group winners qualified for the semifinal stage. The semifinals and final were both played on a home-and-away basis. Following the success of the 2017 season, the OFC added a quarterfinal round for the 2018 edition, meaning that the top two teams from each group qualified for the knock-out stage.

The 2019 final, Hienghène Sport–AS Magenta (both from New Caledonia), marked the first time in the history of the competition that there was no side from New Zealand present.

Records and statistics

OFC Club Championship era

Season	Winners	Score	Runners-up	Venue	Attendance	No. of teams	No. of associations
1987	Adelaide City	1–1 (4–1 pen.)	University-Mount Wellington	Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide	3,500	9	9
1999	South Melbourne	5–1	Nadi	Prince Charles Park, Nadi	10,000	9	9
2001	Wollongong Wolves	1–0	Tafea	Lloyd Robson Stadium, Port Moresby	3,000	11	11
2005	Sydney FC	2–0	AS Magenta	Stade Pater, Papeete	4,000	13	12
2006	Auckland City	3–1	AS Pirae	North Harbour Stadium, Auckland	2,000	11	10

OFC Champions League era

Season	Winners	Score	Runners-up	Venue	Attendance	No. of teams	No. of associations
2007	Waitakere United	2–1	Ba	Govind Park, Ba	10,000	6	5
		0–1		Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland	9,000
		2–2 (a)			19,000
2007–08	Waitakere United	1–3	Kossa	Lawson Tama Stadium, Honiara	20,000	9	8
		5–0		Trusts Stadium, Waitakere City	6,000
		6–3			26,000
2008–09	Auckland City	7–2	Koloale	Lawson Tama Stadium, Honiara	20,000	6	6
		2–2		Kiwitea Street, Auckland	1,250
		9–4			21,250
2009–10	Hekari United	3–0	Waitakere United	PMRL Stadium, Port Moresby	15,000	8	7
		1–2		Fred Taylor Park, Auckland	3,000
		4–2			18,000
2010–11	Auckland City	2–1	Amicale	Municipal Stadium, Port Vila	7,925	8	7
		4–0		Kiwitea Street, Auckland	3,000
		6–1			10,925
2011–12	Auckland City	2–1	AS Tefana	Kiwitea Street, Auckland	1,500	8	7
		1–0		Stade Louis Ganivet, Faaa	1,900
		3–1			3,400
2012–13	Auckland City	2–1	Waitakere United	Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland	3,000	12	11
2013–14	Auckland City	1–1	Amicale	Municipal Stadium, Port Vila	10,000	15	11
		2–1		Kiwitea Street, Auckland	3,000
		3–2			13,000
2014–15	Auckland City	1–1 (4–3 pen.)	Team Wellington	National Stadium, Suva	3,000	15	11
2016	Auckland City	3–0	Team Wellington	QBE Stadium, Auckland	1,500	15	11
2017	Auckland City	3–0	Team Wellington	Kiwitea Street, Auckland	1,000	18	11
		2–0		David Farrington Park, Wellington	1,000
		5–0			2,000
2018	Team Wellington	6–0	Lautoka	David Farrington Park, Wellington	1,200	18	11
		4–3		Churchill Park, Lautoka	1,000
		10–3			2,200
2019	Hienghène Sport	1–0	AS Magenta	Stade Numa-Daly Magenta, Nouméa	7,000	18	11
2020	Competition abandoned due to COVID-19 pandemic in Oceania; title not awarded[3]
2021	No competition due to COVID-19 pandemic in Oceania; title not awarded[4]
2022	Auckland City	3–0	Vénus	Ngahue Reserve, Auckland	400	14	8
2023	Auckland City	4–2 (a.e.t.)	Suva	Municipal Stadium, Port Vila	5,420	18	11

Performances by club

Past winners are:[5][6]

Club	Titles	Runners-up	Winning Seasons	Runner-up Seasons
Auckland City	11	—	2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023	—
Waitakere United	2	2	2007, 2008	2010, 2013
Team Wellington	1	3	2018	2015, 2016, 2017
Adelaide City	1	—	1987	—
South Melbourne	1	—	1999	—
Wollongong Wolves	1	—	2001	—
Sydney FC	1	—	2005	—
Hekari United	1	—	2010	—
Hienghène Sport	1	—	2019	—
Magenta	—	2	—	2005, 2019
Amicale	—	2	—	2011, 2014
University-Mount Wellington	—	1	—	1987
Nadi	—	1	—	1999
Tafea	—	1	—	2001
Pirae	—	1	—	2006
Ba	—	1	—	2007
Kossa	—	1	—	2008
Koloale	—	1	—	2009
Tefana	—	1	—	2012
Lautoka	—	1	—	2018
Vénus	—	1	—	2022
Suva	—	1	—	2023

Performances by country

Country	Titles	Runners-up	Total
New Zealand	14	6	20
Australia	4	0	4
New Caledonia	1	2	3
Papua New Guinea	1	0	1
Fiji	0	4	4
Tahiti	0	3	3
Vanuatu	0	3	3
Solomon Islands	0	2	2

Notes:

Australia is no longer an OFC member.

All-time table (Top 10 Clubs)

As of 9th November 2022. All matches including qualifying were taken into account with a game decided by penalties counted as draw. No awarded/withdrawn games were counted.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Auckland City (17)	97	73	15	9	297	69	+228	234
2	Waitakere United (8)	49	26	12	11	99	47	+52	90
3	Ba (13)	55	24	7	24	79	90	−11	79
4	Magenta (10)	45	23	7	15	104	61	+43	76
5	Tafea (9)	38	18	8	12	97	64	+33	62
6	Team Wellington (5)	27	19	4	4	94	26	+68	61
7	Hekari United (10)	43	17	10	16	65	67	−2	61
8	Amicale (6)	35	16	5	14	50	40	+10	53
9	Tupapa Maraerenga (7)	27	12	3	12	79	92	−13	39
10	Lautoka (6)	27	11	5	11	46	58	−12	38

Source:

* Number in parentheses show number of participations.

All-time table (Countries)

As of 9th November 2022. All matches including qualifying were taken into account with a game decided by penalties counted as draw. No awarded/withdrawn games were counted.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	New Zealand	193	128	37	28	557	165	+392	421
2	Fiji	119	47	16	56	187	242	−55	157
3	Vanuatu	109	44	22	43	205	188	+17	154
4	New Caledonia	97	38	16	43	178	187	−9	130
5	Tahiti	108	38	15	55	224	221	+3	129
6	Solomon Islands	102	36	18	48	203	225	−22	126
7	Papua New Guinea	89	28	14	47	143	239	−96	98
8	Samoa	54	19	4	31	112	176	−64	61
9	Cook Islands	44	16	5	23	99	128	−29	53
10	Australia	17	16	1	0	90	9	+81	49
11	Tonga	34	6	5	23	46	153	−107	23
12	American Samoa	22	1	2	19	25	128	−103	5
13	Palau	1	0	0	1	2	6	−4	0