ABSTRACT
The Oceania region has long been peripheral to the economies and geopolitics of global football. Yet, it contains a range of diverse footballing contexts, and despite geographical isolation has not been insigni cant to the global game’s recent power struggles. In this chapter I reveal the dynamics which shaped the emergence and subsequent development of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), FIFA’s youngest regional body. I then discuss some of the uneven literature regarding football in Oceania, in particular noting its gaps and silences. Signi cantly, the smallest of FIFA’s six confederations, and the only one without automatic World Cup quali cation, is predominantly made up of nations where football is in the shadow of competing sporting codes – a factor which produces unique dynamics and contexts. I then use the example of Aotearoa New Zealand to explore how football’s presence is contested and patterned by broader sporting and cultural hierarchies in nationally contextual ways. Finally, I conclude with suggestions for future research directions.
