The 2002 OFC Nations Cup qualification tournament was a football competition that was played in March 2002 to determine the two of OFC's five lowest-ranked members men's national teams to advance to the 2002 OFC Nations Cup final tournament played in New Zealand in July 2002. The national teams of six OFC member associations entered the qualifying process. Cook Islands withdrew from the competition.

Qualified teams Team Qualified as Qualified onPrevious appearances in tournament Qualifying tournament winners 18 March 2002 1 (1980) Qualifying tournament runners-up 18 March 2002 2 (1973, 1980)

Format With the end of the Polynesian and Melanesian Cups between the 2000 and 2002 tournaments, (the two competitions formerly served a secondary function as qualifiers for the OFC Nations Cup), a new format was created to decide the teams which would be accepted for the Nations Cup. Retaining their round-robin group qualifier style, the OFC this time chose to adopt the FIFA rankings to order all the entrants. With New Caledonia not yet a FIFA member, they were placed last by default. The lowest six teams were then made to compete for two places via a round-robin group stage, with the highest-placed two teams qualifying for the Oceania Nations Cup.

The Rankings of all the teams involved in the OFC Nations Cup are below. The positions were taken as of October, 2001, with the eleven ranked teams appearing in the following order:

+ Teams who automatically entered the 2002 OFC Nations Cup Team (title holders) 48 84 123 128 134 169+ Teams who entered the 2002 OFC Nations Cup qualifying stage Team 172 175 176 195 201 N/A

Tiebreakers The ranking of teams in the standings were based on the following criteria (regulations Articles 15):

Points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss) Overall goal difference Overall goals scored Score from direct Drawing of lots by the OFC Organising Committee

Schedule Below was the schedule of the 2002 OFC Nations Cup qualification.

Stage Matchday Dates Qualifying tournament Matchday 1 9 March 2002 Matchday 2 12 March 2002 Matchday 3 14 March 2002 Matchday 4 16 March 2002 Matchday 5 18 March 2002

Standings

Matches Before the first group stage began, the withdrew, resulting in the group stage being played between only five nations.

and progress to the second group stage.

Statistics

Goalscorers

References