NZ basketball are now stuffed financially after their world body disbands Oceania federation and moves them into Asia:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/basketball/93022599/f...
They now are required to compete in all major Asian competitions at a cost of about $NZ 2 million over the next two years.
A warning as to what could happen to football if the same thing happened?
What crap!! Laos &Cambodia and Yamen do well funding there mens and womens national teams. I think your talking shark about it being a warning - more like you like being in Oceania and stuck in the old ways of football life.
In reality a lot of Asian countries (outside of the wealthy handful) struggle to fund their national team programs.
Guam withdrew after qualifying for the third round of Asian Cup qualification because it couldn't afford to bring its team together or travel.
There's also tremendous corruption and government interference.
Asian Cup 2019 and World Cup 2018 qualifying has been severely disrupted by both Indonesia and Kuwait being kicked out of the qualifying mid-way through with several games left to be played by both countries, after FIFA suspended their FA's for government interference.
Qualifying became very Mickey Mouse with the mediocre Nepal and Macau who had lost and been eliminated in the first round, invited in to make up the numbers to 24 for the third round of qualifying.
Yemen only played three games in total last year. Laos men's team haven't played at all this year, Cambodia played three games in 2013. These sorts of countries mainly play friendlies against their neighbours and are only more active in years when there are qualifiers for the World Cup or AFC tournaments.
Even Australia have complained about the large costs involved in sending their men's and women's age group sides the huge distances around Asia.
On top of that, Australia's results at age group level in AFC tournaments have been poor in recent years and they've failed to qualify for the last two FIFA u-20 men's world cups. In the qualifying for this year's u-17 world cup Australia lost all their group games and finished bottom of their group, even losing to Kyrgyzstan.
That's despite the FFA receiving some of the most generous government funding of football in the AFC countries.
In 2008 the FFA was receiving $AU 16 million from the government every four years and then this was increased by an extra $AU 16 million for two years to give women's football a boost etc. So the FFA received $AU 32 million in government funding 2008-2012.
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/budget/publishin...
By comparison, government funding of football in NZ is minimal and almost exclusively targets the women's national team.
NZ Football's total income in their 2016 financial report was merely $153,387
http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/201...
They have cash reserves of $NZ 4.27 million from which everything is funded. Most of these reserves came from the play-offs vs. Mexico for the last world Cup and money left from qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
Qualifying for the Confederations Cup this year in Russia earned NZ Football $US 1.7 million from FIFA (minimum payout for participating).
This sort of revenue which NZ Football is so dependent on would dry up if we joined the AFC.
Things though have just got more complicated recently with the Asian Confederation combining World Cup qualifying games with Asian Cup qualifiers.
Under the new format, most of the smaller Asian countries will play only two competitive matches every four years (in a preliminary round). Yes, two games every four years...
So most Oceania members would not be in favour of Oceania fully joining the AFC if that is what resulted.
NZ would no doubt achieve a higher ranking in Asia than the Pacific Island nations and so play more games, both at youth and senior level, but at a greatly increased financial cost.
Only a handful of countries in Asian benefit from large amounts of TV rights money (Japan, South Korea, Australia etc.)
The FFA in Australia in a good year operates with an income of about $AU 90 - 100 million mostly from TV revenue (the generous deal with Fox and Asian rights to internationals and Asian Champions League etc.) .
NZ would never achieve that sort of revenue stream from TV money.
Currently we have been earning big TV rights money only from the World Cup inter-continental play-off every four years. Last time it was huge from the two games vs. Mexico. Enough to finance our football in NZ for four years at a good basic level.
The Asian Cup for 2019 has been expanded to 24 teams and for the first time, all AFC members were able to enter qualifying (previously only the top 20 teams in AFC competed in qualifying for ten or eleven spots, the remaining spots being claimed by the hosts, the winners of the previous two AFC Challenge Cups and the top three teams at the previous Asian Cup).
New AFC World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying format (combined):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...
First two rounds double as World Cup qualification:
Round One: Teams ranked 35–46 in Asia play home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.
Round Two:
A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) are divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.