Football: 2015 O-League draw released

As Auckland City FC gears up for next week's FIFA Club World Cup showdown in Morocco, closer to home the journey to the 2015 edition has been revealed. Photo / Auckland City media.

As Auckland City FC gears up for next week's FIFA Club World Cup showdown in Morocco, closer to home the journey to the 2015 edition has been revealed.

For the second year running, 12 teams will compete for the biggest sporting prize in Oceania, with the draw for the 2015 OFC Champions League unveiling the path they must follow.

Twelve teams will take part in Oceania's premier club competition and for the first time all three stages of the tournament, group stage, semi-finals and one-off final, will be staged in one country - Fiji.

The club champions of Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu will be joined by the domestic runners-up from New Zealand, Vanuatu, Tahiti and Fiji, after those four nations made the semi-finals of the 2014 OFC Champions League.

Rounding out the 12 clubs will be 2015 OFC Champions League Preliminary winners, Lupe Ole Soaga FC of Samoa.

Based on performances from representative clubs in the 2014 edition of the competition, the 12 teams were seeded for the draw, which was conducted in the presence of the OFC Executive Committee.

According to the draw procedure outlined by the OFC Competitions department, the teams ranked 1-3 were seeded into Groups A, B and C respectively, in Position 1.
Teams ranked 4-6 were drawn by lots in the following order; Group A - Position 2, Group B - Position 2, Group C - Position 2. The same rule applies for Positions 3 and 4 in each group with Position 3 filled by teams ranked 7-9 and Position 4 by teams ranked 10-12.

Redrawing of lots only occurred in the case where two teams from the same national association were drawn in the same group.

The teams were drawn into the three groups as shown below:

Group A Group B Group C
1 Tahiti 1 New Zealand 1 Vanuatu 1
2 Fiji 1 Solomon Islands New Zealand 2
3 New Caledonia Vanuatu 2 Tahiti 2
4 Preliminary winner Fiji 2 Papua New Guinea

Successful host of this year's tournament, Fiji will split the games between Govind Park in Ba and ANZ Stadium in Suva in April.

Each group will play each other in a round robin based on a league system, the teams finishing first, as well as the best-ranked runner-up, of all three groups will contest the semi-finals. The winner of each semi-final will progress to the 2015 OFC Champions League final.