The Oceania Football Confederation news release is headed: OFC Website goes live.

The release says: The Oceania Football Confederation has launched its official website http://www.oceaniafootball.com. The OFC website has been under construction since late 2002 with the assistance of Australian-based website developers,
SportingPulse.

The OFC website has been keenly anticipated and will now serve as an additional medium for disseminating football information from the Oceania region to the world.

The OFC website will also be a hub of information for
whoever chooses to visit the site, whether it is soccer officials, players or the fans themselves.

Football information from our part of the world has been scarce in the past and almost exclusively from Australia and New Zealand, who have developed websites already," said OFC General Secretary and CEO, Ms Josephine King.

But now with the website, it opens up the rest of our Confederation to the world and provides the island nations, in particular, with the exposure, which, up to this point, has been minimal.

The website belongs to all our member national associations, and with the recent milestones such as direct entry being achieved for OFC, we feel the launching of the website is timely and appropriate.

The website contains extensive information on the eleven member national associations that make up the OFC.Information is also available on the provisional and associate members of OFC.

There will now be full coverage given to all Oceania tournaments through competition sub sites which will be
created and linked to the main OFC website.

This began with the OFC U-20 Qualifying Tournament last December.The competition sub site for the next scheduled tournament - the OFC U-17 qualifying tournament, to be
co-hosted by Australia and American Samoa from 13 February-5 March 2003 - can only be accessed by logging on to the main OFC website. This will also apply to future tournaments.

SportingPulse has made it possible for each member national association to have their own website linked to the OFC website. Those national associations without a website will now be able to run their own competitions and upload their own information on these sites provided on the OFC website.

Over the following months, the OFC will work together with SportingPulse to train selected administrators at designated member national associations to maintain their own websites.

For further information, please contact:
Peter Rees
Media Officer
Oceania Football Confederation
PO Box 62, 586 Central Park Auckland 6 New Zealand
Tel (649) 525 8161 Fax (649) 525 8164 Mobile: 021 189 3518
E-mail: rees@ofcfoot.org.nz