The Oceania Football Confederation is set to establish a professional Pacific Football League within the next two years.

The concept for the domestic competition played across multiple island-nations has been given a boost exponentially by the financial backing of world football's governing body, FIFA.

The league that was first proposed to lift the standard of the round-ball game in rugby-loving nations across the South Pacific once was scheduled to commence in 2021 until the global pandemic put a halt to those plans.

Slowly but surely that has changed ahead of the OFC being given one direct qualification spot to the 2026 World Cup.

The next move from FIFA has been to lift the standard of the game on a domestic level throughout the Pacific amid a unique one-league competition.

Oceania football federations of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have expressed a real interest in either creating new elite teams or endorsing current clubs of national leagues to participate in the first professional league and grow support for the game in parallel to new Super Rugby Pacific sides Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika.

Aotearoa-New Zealand is considering entering at least one team formed from several of its Polynesian communities, including many of the under-represented Maori players in a competition that will be run separately to existing clubs that play in the top-tier, but semi-professional New Zealand National League.

It has also led to a push to invite Australian clubs amid ongoing delays and the ongoing uncertainty to establish its own national second-division competition to support the A-League, in addition to the AFC's decision at the end of its 2006 World Cup campaign to leave Oceania for Asia.

The OFC believes that including teams from the region's two biggest football nations will build a strong base for a new professional league and for supporting the mostly Melanesian players.

"OFC's consideration of an Australian-based club reflects a strong Pacific community across Australia and the ease of travel access to Pacific nations," OFC boss Lambert Matlock said in a recent statement.

"This inclusion also brings significant benefits, including an increased visibility and a market reach, enhanced competitive standards, stronger economic and cultural links, and a new development pathway for Pacific players.

"An Australian team would strengthen regional ties, inspire new partnership opportunities, and contribute to the growth of football across Oceania."

The competition that will run opposite times of the year to A-League's summer season that includes Aotearoa-New Zealand clubs, Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix, will be one of its first in the world to have a confederation be the controlling body of what is essentially a domestic league.

A current club or new team affiliated from Australia that is tied to Asian football but committing to an Oceanian league makes the situation remarkably even more peculiar for a member of a competition playing in one confederation but affiliated from another confederation.

Even Monaco playing in France, the four clubs from Wales in the English Football League system and another three from Canada that joined the US Major League Soccer are still a part of the one single confederation.

But this move for interested Australian parties to join has the support of FIFA boss Gianni Infantino for the greater good of growing the sport where it is not the preferred version of football.

"FIFA wholeheartedly supports the efforts to create an Oceania professional league because we need to professionalise the game everywhere across all the (Pacific) islands," Infantino said.

"There are challenges across all of the islands, and we need to turn these challenges into advantages in order to create professional football at the top level.

"We will work for that, and we expect that together with FIFA, all confederations and member associations will provide their support."

The OFC is privately hoping the Australian government will subsidise multiple Australian clubs to join the league akin to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese financing a Papua New Guinean NRL bid.

The projection of a Pacific competition in 2026 is set to supersede the much-maligned OFC Champions League that every time bar twice since the competition started in 1987, only an Australian or Aoeatora side has won the Champions League.