🚀 go-pugleaf

Australia's Football (=Soccer) Federation were celebrating last week because 
FIFA - the world governing body - decided to disband our Oceania Zone 
(Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands) and lump us in with Asia.
This is seen as a boost for football in Oz. Our national & club teams will 
compete in large Asian tournaments. More importantly, our path to the World 
Cup will be through Asia, a fairer method and better chance. Previously, we 
would win our little zone then face a playoff against some team from another 
zone. Scotland, Argentina, Iran & Uruguay have all knocked us out. As a 
result, Australia has not qualified for a World Cup since 1974.

What happens in bridge? We have our Oceania Zone (Australia, NZ & some 
Islands) and are likely to keep it. The quality of bridge at the top is not 
so great out here but we (OZ & NZ) have 50,000 registered players, much more 
than any Asian country (though China will catch upsome day soon). That's the 
raisin d'etre.
As a result, our Zone gets a place in the Bermuda Bowl (always goes to OZ or 
NZ) and sometimes two places (depending on how well we both did in the 
previous Olympiad).

Another zone is Pacific (Far East) Asia, who have their own B Bowl 
qualifying tournament, sending two teams to the finals. Australia and NZ 
attend this tournament as guests (the results the Asian teams get against 
our teams don't count for their purposes!). Australia has not won the Far 
East Open Teams since 1972.

I think the WBF should follow the football example and disband our Zone, 
adding us to an expanded Pacific Asia zone that would presumably qualify 3 
teams to the B Bowl. The PABF CHampionships would become more meaningful, 
etc. It's in our interest to seek greater involvement in Asia - bridge, 
business, politics, culture. Hmm. Starting to ramble a bit ...

What do people think?

Nick Hughes, Sydney