All Whites to play two World Cup send-off matches in Auckland in March

Wednesday, 3 December 2025

The All Whites will play two matches in Auckland in March as a final send-off before the FIFA World Cup in North America next June.

The fixtures – against opponents and at venues yet to be announced – will be part of a FIFA Series tournament and will be played between March 26 and 31. They have been made possible by support from the government's events attraction package.

The All Whites are set to discover their World Cup draw later this week, with coach Darren Bazeley and NZ Football chief executive Andrew Pragnell two of seven staff flying out to the United States on Wednesday night.

The 42 teams to have qualified already – and the 22 still vying for six places – will learn their fate at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Friday afternoon local time (6am Saturday NZ time).

Confirmation before then that the All Whites will play at home in one of the two windows left before the World Cup will come as a massive boost – and a fillip for fans, who last saw the team play at home in March.

As Pragnell said in a statement: “To have two final games at home against strong international opposition and properly see the team off is huge”.

The All Whites didn't play at home between qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in November 2009 and the tournament in June the following year. In 1982, the first time the qualified, they played Hungary twice, as well as series of matches against a League of Ireland XI and English club Watford.

The first six editions of the FIFA Series took place in the March international window in 2024, including one in Egypt where the All Whites played the hosts, losing 1-0, then Tunisia, drawing 1-1 but going down in a penalty shootout to determine the tournament finishing order. Croatia were the fourth team taking part and beat Egypt in the final.

Eight editions were announced for next March last month and the addition of the New Zealand event will make nine. Australia and Uzbekistan are the other World Cup-bound teams confirmed to be hosting events, which are expected to again feature two semifinals followed by a third-place playoff and final.

While the teams that will be visiting New Zealand are yet to be confirmed, the aim of the FIFA Series is to bring together teams from different confederations – something that only happens at World Cups or in friendlies.

They will not necessarily be teams that have qualified for the World Cup, but NZ Football is understood to be confident they will be – or will mostly be – teams that sit above the World No 86 All Whites in the FIFA rankings.

Panama (ranked 30), Paraguay (39), Ivory Coast (42), South Africa (61) are teams that leap out from pot three in this week's World Cup draw as realistic possibilities, as well as Cabo Verde (68), Ghana (72), Curaçao (82) and Haiti (84) from pot four – teams the All Whites can't face at the World Cup.

The three South American nations to have failed to qualify for the World Cup – Venezuela (48), Peru (52) and Chile (53) – could potentially be lured across the Pacific, as they will be short on options.

The unqualified teams from east Asia – China (93) and Thailand (95) – would be less appealing, as they are ranked below the All Whites. FIFA getting Japan (18) or South Korea (22) to play in New Zealand would be a major coup, however unlikely that may be.

NZ Football hopes the participating teams will be confirmed later this month, once the World Cup draw is complete.

Negotiations as to which of Auckland’s three venues – Eden Park, Go Media Stadium and North Harbour Stadium will be used – are ongoing. The Blues play at Eden Park on the Saturday of the March window, while the Warriors play at Go Media Stadium and Moana Pasifika play at North Harbour Stadium on the Friday.

The All Whites will complete their World Cup preparations with two matches in early June, which will almost certainly be played in Canada, Mexico or the US – the co-hosts of the tournament.

The World Cup starts on June 11 (June 12 NZ time).

South Island fixture coming

Come the end of March, the All Whites will have played 10 home matches in the three-and-a-half years since September 2022.

Their previous 10 home matches took place over a seven-year period between October 2010 and November 2017, with an almost five-year gap between those two groups of fixtures.

Seven of those 10 matches will have been in Auckland. Two were played at Sky Stadium in Wellington, while the other was at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton.

Pragnell is acutely aware the South Island hasn't hosted an All Whites match since 2013 and has long signposted his intent to take a match there once the new Te Kaha Stadium opens next April.

While announcing the matches for March on Wednesday, he said: 'We would have loved to play in two cities, but one of the requirements of hosting is ensuring all games are played in one location to maximise training time ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

“We have already committed to bringing the team home again after the tournament, where we are looking to play at least one game in the South Island, so fans can get used to continuing to see the team on a regular basis, as they have in 2025.”

The Football Ferns haven’t played in New Zealand since April 2024, despite NZ Football’s post-Covid-19 pandemic commitment to having both national teams play at home at least once each year.

Planned home fixtures against a South American opponent in May and June fell through at the last minute, but the team is set to play at home next April, if they advance to the final four in Oceania World Cup qualifying, as is expected.

All Whites – key dates on the road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Saturday: The World Cup draw takes place in Washington, DC

Sunday: The World Cup match schedule is confirmed

March 26–31: Two FIFA Series matches in Auckland

May 25: Clubs must release players for pre-World Cup camps

June 1–9: Two friendlies, likely to be played in North America

June 11: World Cup starts