"Speaking or forming a view may perhaps risk that funding. You don't want to put that at risk because it's your livelihood." That's former Papua New Guinea international Alex Davani cutting straight to why most of Oceania has stayed silent during the biggest political rupture in world football in years.
The FIFA civil war — triggered by Infantino's abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, which promised $40 million per member association — has drawn loud responses from the major confederations. But smaller nations, particularly those in Oceania, have said almost nothing. Davani, a lawyer, sports administrator, and former deputy general secretary of Football Australia, says that silence isn't apathy. It's self-preservation.
The funding problem nobody wants to say out loud
Here's the structural issue: FIFA's development funding is discretionary, not an entitlement. It's nowhere enshrined in FIFA's statutes as something member associations are owed. For nations in Oceania, that money isn't supplementary income — it's often the entire operational budget. The funding has grown substantially under Infantino, jumping from $2-3 million over a four-year cycle to $8 million in the most recent round. PNG got a new national football centre in 2023. The Solomon Islands got one too. Vanuatu got a new stadium. That's real infrastructure in regions that would otherwise have none.
So when the FIFA president — the man overseeing that funding — floats a controversial proposal, what exactly are these associations supposed to say? The $40 million offer was enormous. But as Davani sees it, fixating on the money misses a bigger point about what Oceania actually needs from FIFA leadership.
"For a region like Oceania, we need our leaders to have a real understanding of some of the things that impact the growth and development of professional football," he said. He listed the cost of inter-island travel, climate change eating away at playing surfaces and even entire islands, and indigenous peoples' rights. These aren't abstract political issues — they're obstacles to running a football program.
The talent is there. The systems aren't.
Davani pointed to Tim Cahill, who played for Samoa before switching to Australia, and Christian Karembeu, the French World Cup winner born in New Caledonia, as evidence that the Pacific produces genuine football talent. The bottleneck isn't ability — it's the infrastructure and systems around that talent that have consistently failed to develop it.
The 11-member Oceania federation met Wednesday to discuss the FIFA schism, and their position remains delicate. They're caught between powerful confederations demanding reform and a funding structure that makes open dissent feel financially reckless.
"I think the disappointing thing for me about this entire thing is we stop talking about football," Davani said, "especially in a region where it needs to be played more often."
That's the real cost of FIFA's political crisis — not the boardroom drama, but the development conversations it's crowding out in regions that can least afford the distraction.
