Australia has renewed calls for FIFA to grant Oceania an automatic place in the World Cup finals after Sunday's playoff loss to Uruguay.
Australia's top soccer official said it was unfair that the Oceania winner should be forced into a two-leg playoff when every other confederation was awarded automatic qualification.
"This is an issue we need to redress," Soccer Australia chairman Ian Knop said today. "Oceania and the people who support Oceania need to start to strengthen their voice on this issue. This is critical".
Australia beat New Zealand over two legs in June to claim the Oceania title after both teams had won their qualifying pools.
But rather than advance straight to next year's finals in Japan and Korea, they had to play off against two-time World Cup champions Uruguay, who finished fifth in the South American qualifying series.
Australia won the first leg 1-0 in Melbourne but lost the return match in Montevideo 3-0 to miss out on aggregate, continuing a run of playoff losses that included Scotland (1986), Argentina (1994) and Iran (1998).
