Editorial: Why is Fiji still missing out on the FIFA World Cup?

When will Fiji's men's football team finally play at a FIFA World Cup?

The question is becoming more pressing following FIFA's expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams, a move that has given the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) a direct pathway to football's biggest stage.

For Fiji, the route is now clearer than ever. To qualify, we must overcome regional rivals such as New Zealand, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Yet despite the opportunity presented by the new format, Fiji has again fallen short.

That reality demands accountability from the Fiji Football Association (Fiji FA) board and its executives.

This is because before when the World Cup qualification process was much tougher for the OFC teams, our national football team under head coach, the late Billy Singh, came close of qualifying to the 1990 World Cup.

The Pita Dau captained-side played Australia (Socceroos) in the two-legged process. The Fijians won the first play-off 1-0 at Prince Charles Park in Nadi from a Ravuama Madigi goal on November 26, 1988.

The Socceroos turned the table in the second play-off winning 5-1 in Newcastle to qualify to the next round. During the qualification rounds, Fiji twice beat New Zealand 2-0 and 1-0 respectively.

It’s a pity that while Australia and New Zealand are playing at the current World Cup, we are still nowhere close to them.

Historically, football was first played in Fiji in 1889 and competitive competition began in 1924.

Compare that to Curacao, who is almost similar to us since they had their first national football team in 1924. However, Curacao has gone a step further by making it to this World Cup, for the first time.

Dubbed as the ‘Blue Wave’ Curacao made history by becoming the smallest nation (by both population and area) to ever reach the FIFA World Cup.

If that is not enough, we can take a look at another team Cape Verde who also qualified for the World Cup. They (Cape Verde) secured their spot by topping Group D in the African (CAF) qualifiers ahead of continental powerhouses like Cameroon. As a nation of around 600,000 people, Cape Verde is the third-smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup.

If Curacao and Cape Verde can make it to the World Cup, then why can’t Fiji?

What are the priorities of the Fiji FA board of directors and executives?

Are the construction of FIFA funded academy, futsal pitches and stadium going to guarantee us, a spot in the World Cup?

Right now, our national team is finding it hard to beat Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Tahiti and Vanuatu let alone taking care of Australia and New Zealand

It’s time for all stakeholders including Government to be bold in stepping in to review and monitor how things operate at Fiji FA. It’s time to enforce necessary changes and adopt new policies to take the sport out of the doldrums.

Adopting to new changes will be a hurtful process but it needs to be done for the sake of the sport and the future of our rising footballers who deserve better than what they are currently getting, which is virtually nothing at all.