Asian champions Iraq plus Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will all be missing, as Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Australia fly the flag for the region.

The Aussies left Oceania for Asia almost four years ago and haven't looked back, making the second round of Germany 2006, comfortably qualifying for South Africa and creating a successful professional championship, the A-League. It makes sense their Trans-Tasman neighbours, New Zealand, should join them in the soccer mainstream.

Already, the Wellington Phoenix are playing in the A-League with the same coach and many of the same players who took the national team to glory against Bahrain. And if results go their way this weekend, the Phoenix could move into the top four of the 10-team competition.

Coach Ricki Herbert has turned the team into a formidable force that have lost only three of 14 games this season and are unbeaten at home. Those resilient qualities - combined with the flair of British-based players such as Ryan Nelsen, Chris Killen and Rory Fallon - helped New Zealand over the line against the Bahrainis.

But the Phoenix's rise presents an embarrassing dilemma for Football Federation Australia. Because New Zealand are part of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), if the Phoenix finish in the top two, which would normally qualify them for the AFC Champions League, Asian chiefs have vowed to refuse them entry.

AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam, a big supporter of Australia's passage into Asia, was non-committal this week about New Zealand following suit.

'If New Zealand departed from Oceania, that confederation would lose another giant football country,' he said. 'It's not my decision: it's the decision of our congress, their congress, and the Fifa congress.

'What I can say is that when Australia joined the AFC, it was a win-win for both parties and now football in Australia is booming.'

Herbert has said the idea of New Zealand joining the AFC should be opened up for discussion because it could create greater interest in the rugby-obsessed nation. The play-off against Bahrain attracted a crowd of 35,100 to the Westpac Stadium, but sports fans are understandably less eager to go out to watch the usual World Cup qualifiers against the likes of the Solomon Islands and Fiji.

The last time New Zealand made it to a World Cup - Spain '82 - local administrators predicted an avalanche of interest. But after the All Whites lost all three games while conceding 12 goals, soccer soon returned to its secondary status. Entry into Asia could be a way to consolidate recent advances.

While it's hard to begrudge New Zealand their moment in the spotlight, they have qualified for soccer's biggest event without beating a team higher than 61 in the Fifa rankings, while the likes of the Croatia, Russia and Turkey miss out after gruelling campaigns in Europe. That hardly seems fair.

By playing in Asia, New Zealand would have to regularly prove themselves against tougher opposition than Pacific Island minnows. Australia, for example, have gone from thrashing American Samoa 31-0 to facing tough qualifiers in faraway places such as Yokohama, Tashkent and Kunming.

Perhaps the best way to include New Zealand and avoid leaving Oceania out in the cold would be to allow the AFC to absorb the smaller confederation and let Fifa re-draw the borders, splitting Asia into east and west zones.

From a regional perspective, this would make Asia stronger and may make Fifa less likely to take away one of the AFC's 4 1/2 World Cup places, after less than impressive performances since the false dawn of Korea/Japan 2002. At Germany 2006, only Australia progressed beyond the first round and they qualified through Oceania.

Just three Asian teams are within the Fifa top 50, while South America has seven nations among the elite, even though both the AFC and Conmebol are given 4 1/2 spots for the World Cup finals.

But this all-embracing approach may not go down well with some of the volatile Middle Eastern nations who are already unhappy that Australia have effectively taken away a World Cup spot that once routinely went to a Gulf side. Earlier this year, Kuwaiti FA boss Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah said the Socceroos could be booted out of the AFC even quicker than they were allowed in.

The Australian Open is dubbed the tennis grand slam of the Asia-Pacific while golfers from the Cook Islands play in the Asian Amateur Championship. So why not make New Zealand part of the broad and complex fabric of Asian soccer?