Despite around 50,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander settlement, Australia is a relatively new country in terms of European settlement with its establishment by the British as a penal colony in 1788. The first free immigrants arrived from Britain to Australia in the early 1790s.
The wool industry and the gold rushes in the mid-19th century provided an impetus for more free immigrants, and the earliest reports of “ball games with feet” were first recorded in the 1850s.
The game is widely considered to have started in an official capacity in Australia when John Walter Fletcher, a school teacher, arrived in Australia in 1875. He moved quickly to establish The Wanderers club in Sydney in the late 1870s, and the first recorded football match took place in August 1880.
Football quickly spread around the country and by the time the Australian nation was formed in 1901, football federations and clubs had been established in most areas. The Australian population in 1901 was 3.8 million with the overwhelming majority of English, Scottish or Irish descent with some of Chinese descent.
From 1946, a quiet 'cultural revolution' commenced with the influx of thousands of refugees from eastern Europe. Many thousands more immigrants arrived from all over Europe (including the United Kingdom) in the five years after the end of the war and throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The scale of this migration made the Australian population more cosmopolitan. Not only did the new arrivals bring with them their own languages, food and culture, but they also brought their passion for football. The establishment of football clubs by Australia's post-war immigrants was part of the cultural glue for the diverse ethnic groups who now called Australia home.
As the participation in, and technical
quality of, football increased so too did the lure of football’s greatest stage, the FIFA World Cup™.
In Australia's first attempt to qualify for the FIFA World Cup™, it was eliminated from qualification for the 1966 finals in 1965 by the North Korean team which made it to the quarter finals.
Australia succeeded in qualifying for the FIFA World Cup™ on its third attempt, and the team that competed in West Germany in 1974 also reflected Australia of that time. Of the 21-man squad, only five were born in Australia with the remainder having migrated from England, Croatia, Germany, Scotland or Serbia.
Australia’s involvement at the FIFA World Cup™ in 1974 was the springboard for further development in the game including the establishment of Australia’s first national football domestic league competition (in 1977), the participation of national women's teams in international tournaments (from 1979) and the hosting of two FIFA events, the 1981 and 1993 FIFA World Youth Championships.
Throughout this period, football continued to increase its participation base.
This coincided with another new influx of refugees and migrants to Australia, this time predominantly from around Australia's geographic region of south-east Asia, and the strengthening of links between Australia and its regional neighbours through Australia's establishment of the intergovernmental council on Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation.
In the year 2000, the Sydney Olympic Games were lauded by the then
International Olympic Committee President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, as "the best games ever".
In the early part of the 21st century, refugees and migrants continue to arrive in Australia from throughout the world, particularly from the Middle East and Africa.
Today, Australia is one of the most multicultural nations on earth, with its citizens having more than 200 different nations of birth and with 43% having at least one parent born overseas.
The goal of qualification for the FIFA World Cup™ Finals continued to elude the country until November 2005 when Australia defeated Uruguay after a penalty shootout before a capacity crowd at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney.
The moment of qualification, and the subsequent participation in the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ in Germany, united the Australian people like no other sporting achievement in recent memory, and cemented football in the hearts and minds of millions of Australians.
In 2006, Australia ceased being a member of the Oceania Football Confederation and joined the Asian Football Confederation.
Australia has inherited a rich football history and culture from the millions of refugees and immigrants who have established and built the sport locally.
Today, Australia is part of Asia geopolitically and also in football.
The future strength and growth of the game is in the region that is the Asian Football Confederation, and Australia is in a strong position to contribute to FIFA's objectives of developing the game, touching the world and building a better future.
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