The 11 teams were drawn or placed into 2 groups. The top 2 teams from the first stage advanced to the semifinal stage. The semifinalists were followed by matches for the Gold Medal (first place) and Bronze Medal (third place).
In 2010 the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) announced the creation of a new tournament, the Pacific Cup. Five teams would qualify from the 2011 Pacific Games for the first edition in February 2012 and the New Zealand Olympic team was also invited to participate.[2]
The tournament had initially been planned as part of the qualification tournament for the 2012 OFC Nations Cup,[3] and the OFC's qualification tournament for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. However, FIFA announced a revised format for both tournaments in June 2011, meaning that the Pacific Games were no longer part of qualification, and therefore were not FIFA authorised games.[4]