New Zealand will miss out on a men’s football berth at the Rio Olympics unless their disqualification from the qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea can be successfully appealed.



The Oceania Football Confederation on Sunday upheld Vanuatu’s protest based on the assertion defender Deklan Wynne was ineligible to play in Friday’s semi-final, won by New Zealand 2-0.



An OFC committee disqualified New Zealand and declared Vanuatu 3-0 winners, sending them into the final against Fiji in Port Moresby on Sunday night. The winners of the Pacific Games Under-23 tournament will contest next year’s Olympics, with no second chance existing to qualify.

New Zealand Football said in a short statement it will appeal the ruling. The statement was issued about 1pm (NZT) – less than seven hours before the final was to kick off – with no-one from the organisation available for comment since.

“We strongly refute the ruling regarding the ineligibility of the player in question and we will be challenging this decision,” chief executive Andy Martin said in the release.



The technical reason for Wynne’s ineligibility was outlined in a short OFC statement, which said New Zealand had transgressed Fifa regulations related to residency.



Wynne, 20, was born in Kapstadt, South Africa but reportedly moved to New Zealand as a child. He lives in Auckland and has played for the Wanderers SC Under-20 team in the national domestic league since 2013. He holds a New Zealand passport and has played three senior internationals for the All Whites, making his debut against China last November.

However, the OFC has referred to the Fifa statute which says any player not born in a country or without a parent or grandparent from that country, needs to have lived there for five years after the age of 18. Wynne isn’t old enough to have done so.



Pacific Games Council (PGC) executive director Andrew Minogue released a statement expressing regret at any confusion which may have been caused by staging a Fifa tournament as part of the Pacific Games multi-sport event.



Minogue said PGC would learn from the issue and said it hadn’t put it off having the tournament played at future Games.



“Having the Olympic tournament here has got a lot of people talking and that’s just what we want,” he said. “Going forward we need to establish the ground rules much earlier and learn from it.”