The Socceroos must participate in the ASEAN Championship for the sake of the future

With just a week to go before the 2024 ASEAN Championship, a regional tournament for national teams from across Southeast Asia begins.

Founded in 1996 as the Tiger Cup and later the AFF Championship, the competition has since been held every two years, except for some specific circumstances such as 2007, by the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF), a sub-unit of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

The most successful team in the competition is Thailand with seven titles, followed by Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.

This tournament has been cherished by the Southeast Asian nations as it is their opportunity to showcase their love of football to the world, given Southeast Asia’s underachieving reputation.

Australia was originally part of the Oceania zone when the tournament was first established. It took nearly two decades for Australia to finally enter the Southeast Asian football family, and seven years after its entry into the AFC.

When the Aussies officially moved into the AFF in 2013, the Socceroos remained a level too high for the rest of Southeast Asia. As such, the rest agreed to allow Australia to become an AFF member under one strict condition: the Socceroos were prevented from entering the competition.

This was done to help these Southeast Asian (NT) national teams improve until they could field more and more competitive teams in the future.

Such restriction did not apply to the youth teams of Australia in the respective regional youth events.

For quite some time, the Socceroos sat watching from afar, wondering if their Southeast Asian neighbors could do well or if they would just be wasted potential. Yet their progress, though slow, was enormous.

In the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Australia, then Asian champions at the time, had extreme difficulty trying to overcome Thailand.

The Aussies held to a shock 2-2 away draw while a hard-fought 2-1 home win was not enough to give Australia direct qualification after Saudi Arabia’s 1-0 win at home to Japan.

In the 2022 World Cup, the Socceroos got some improvement against Vietnam, beating them both home and away despite several nervous moments. But it was the Socceroos’ only bright spot in a series of lackluster displays that saw Australia dumped into yet another play-off phase.

Despite this, Thailand and Vietnam failed to qualify for the World Cup, so Australia failed to take it seriously.

This time, the situation is much more worrying, given the expansion of the 2026 FIFA World Cup from 32 to 48 teams.

(Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)

Indonesia, which marked its debut in this phase, was no longer the Indonesian team it used to be before.

Led by Shin Tae-yong, who was behind South Korea’s famous 2-0 win over Germany in the 2018 World Cup, Indonesia experienced a major revival for a country that historically underperformed.

The Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) president, Erick Thohir, who was the former owner of Serie A outfit Inter Milan, activated a policy of naturalization process that scouted many players of Indonesian descent from around the world, mainly from the Netherlands, Indonesia’s former colonial. Master.

The team also fielded a group of players originally set to compete in the 2023 U20 World Cup, with Indonesia as the original host – before controversy surrounding Israel left it unable to host that event and the U17 World Cup in the same year.

The impact of these efforts was enormous. Indonesia progressed past the group stages of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, and recently impressed at the third round of the 2026 WCQ, including going unbeaten against Saudi Arabia in their two matches, and an impressive home draw against Australia that saw Graham Arnold resign.

Yet it was the stunning 2-0 home win against Saudi Arabia, Argentina’s 2022 FIFA World Cup conquerors, that caused a major sensation in Indonesia and across Asia over the shock win, to the point that even Indonesian media proclaimed them superior to Leo Messi’s Argentina.

On the other hand, Australia has shown that they have failed to follow past lessons. Despite being dumped at the finals for two consecutive World Cups, Australia continued to prove utterly inept at adapting to the situation.

A complete inability to beat a tricky Bahrain side and failure to find the back of the net against Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, has left Australia in an extremely precarious situation that could be described as a complete crisis.

The reason the Socceroos are second has more to do with the chaotic nature of the group; except for runaway leaders Japan, the instability and crises of the other teams, notably Saudi Arabia’s ongoing collapse, saved Australia’s lackluster campaign.

But while Australia clearly needs a full investigation into why the Socceroos have been so hot in recent World Cups, Indonesia will have a major regional soccer event to attend to improve its competitiveness.

The ASEAN Championship is not part of the FIFA calendar, so key players are not required to return to their respective NTs, but it also means Indonesia will have opportunities to diversify the use of its player pool.

Yet their squad announcement for the competition also included some experienced members such as Rafael Struick, Asnawi Mangkualam, Pratama Arhan and notably Oxford United’s Marselino Ferdinand, whose goal saw the Saudis beat the Saudis 2-0 in Jakarta.

Considering how much Indonesia has progressed, the fact that Australia will not be participating in the upcoming ASEAN Championship is a dire sign.

Had Australia been given the green light to participate, the Socceroos would have been much better off diversifying the player pool and fixing their scoring woes.

Unfortunately, the clause that banned Australia from participating in the senior Southeast Asian event in 2013 has also allowed for sloppiness among Football Australia officials.

This is further exacerbated by the lack of cultural commonality. While all Southeast Asian states share a close heritage, Australia is viewed with suspicion due to its European background, a legacy of historical imperialism practiced by the West.

Yet, with what happened in the 2026 WCQ, it is more urgent than ever for Australia.

The country cannot afford to ignore the increasing strength of the Southeast Asian countries, given the membership in the AFF since 2013.

Football Australia should start renegotiating the clause and actively work to lift the ban. Indonesia’s progress should be used as justification to end the ridiculous ban on the Socceroos’ participation.

A proactive solution must be proposed and pushed forward to end the restriction to allow the Socceroos to play as a Southeast Asian team.

Furthermore, these nations have also realized that they need Australia’s participation more than ever.

The lack of Socceroos in the senior ASEAN Championship has also been blamed for stunting the growth of football in the region.

Many Southeast Asian NTs have great difficulty playing teams as physical, tricky and manipulative as Uzbekistan, Jordan, China and Oman – or even maintaining consistency due to a lack of playing stronger teams.

There is also a growing sentiment more friendly to Australia’s admission to the senior ASEAN Championship, as long as it is in line with the interests of growing football across Southeast Asia, which can also be used, in part due to Australia’s World Cup experience.

It is time for Australia to finally push the AFF to allow it to participate in the regional competition, and it is also time for Southeast Asia to realize the benefits of having Australia participate.

Japan and South Korea still participate in the regional East Asian Championship along with the less successful China and North Korea.

While Iran play in the regional Central Asian Championship with the likes of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. So why is Australia barred from joining the most senior Southeast Asian competition?

It is better for the Socceroos to be a part of the ASEAN Championship in the future, to improve their player pool.

It is now or never for the Socceroos to change for the sake of the future.