Soccer in Nauru
Soccer is a minor sport in the island country of Nauru. The country is not a member of FIFA. History. The most popular codes of football in Nauru have long been Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union, which were introduced during the early 20th century by Australians working in the phosphate industry. Soccer was introduced in the 1960s, by migrant workers from Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. It enjoyed a period of relative popularity, and at one point the island had a six-team league. The all-time top scorer for the Tuvalu national football  team, Alopua Petoa, is from Nauru. A collapse of the Nauruan economy in the late 1990s, followed by a government policy of compulsorily repatriating immigrants, led to an absolute decline in the country's population by 2002. This appears to have severely affected sports other than Australian rules and the rugby codes. A 2009 "World Soccer" article noted that organised soccer had "fallen apart" on Nauru, and that the island's was unlikely to ever field a team at the Pacific Games (the main regional tournament for non-FIFA teams). In the 2019-2020 budget report by the Government of  Nauru it was noted that all available open spaces on the island are used for Australian Rules Football, making it difficult to promote other sports such as soccer and softball. Representative teams. The Nauru Soccer Federation has unsuccessfully applied for membership in the Oceania Football Confederation and FIFA in the past. The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) suggests that it is "quite likely that there has been no official Nauru national soccer team." However, unofficial representative teams have been organised on at least two occasions. On 2 October 1994, a combined Nauru team played a team of expatriate workers  from Solomon Islands in Denigomodu, winning 2–1. Another Nauruan select team was raised in 2014, playing a team from the Nauru Regional Processing Centre to celebrate World Refugee Day. In 2020, Nauru Soccer Federation vice-president Kaz Cain announced that Nauru was considering creating its first-ever official national side for a 2021 tournament in Hawaii.