OFC Champions League 2017

The Vanuatu club champions showed pace from the outset as they raced into the Tefana box from kick-off.

However it was Tefana making more threatening advances into the opposition half testing keeper Serge Daniel early on.

Twenty minutes in, almost against the run of play, a low shot at goal from Tony Kaltack looked a relatively easy save for goalkeeper Mikael Roche, but somehow he let it slip under his fingers giving Erakor first points.

OFC Competitions Director Chris Kemp said the federations and clubs put forward some impressive bid documents which made the final decision difficult in some cases.

“We received some very professional and well considered bids from the clubs,” Kemp said.

Group A will be hosted in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea, where AS Magenta will be welcoming Hekari United, AS Central United and the runners-up from the Qualifying Stage.

For the past two years the competition has been hosted in a single venue but that is set to change in 2017 after the OFC Executive Committee approved a format that will split the competition into four stages.

Stage 1 will be the Preliminary Competition for the national league champions of American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga which will open the competition calendar in 2017.