Australia's soccer supremo John O'Neill says he has a plan to lift the Socceroos to a top-five nation in world football, just like the nation's rise to prominence in the Olympics.

The Socceroos have not qualified for the World Cup since 1974 and have suffered a series of heartbreaking playoff losses.

However, O'Neill says a bid for Australia to leave the Oceania confederation to join Asia would provide a massive platform for the strengthening of the domestic game here.

"Australians love winners," Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive O'Neill said on Fox Sport's Back Page program.

"I can remember in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal we won no gold (leading to the opening of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra five years later).

"We're now fourth in the world. That's what (FFA president) Frank Lowy and I would like to do with football.

"We'd like to say, `okay, we've been to the bottom, we are now going to take this game to great heights'.

"We are all Australians. Just as we are proud of the Kangaroos and the Wallabies and our netball and hockey and Davis Cup teams, we want to be proud of our Socceroos."

O'Neill said a possible move to the Asian federation would not only provide greater preparation for the Socceroos over each four-year World Cup cycle, but would also enable the game to promote itself through stronger television product for networks and sponsors.

While Australia is expected to beat the Solomon Islands in September to qualify for a playoff series against the fifth-ranked South American team in November, it's a route that ended in tears for the Socceroos in 2001 in Uruguay.

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