Ange Postecoglou has been recognised for his standout contribution to Australian football as one of six inductees into Football Australia’s Hall of Fame.
Postecoglou will be joined by former Matildas Moya Dodd and Collette Gardiner (nee McCallum), players’ union pioneer Brendan Schwab, former Socceroo Ted Smith and Tasmanian media personality Walter Pless in the latest batch to be acknowledged.
They will be inducted at the Matildas’ clash against Sweden at AAMI Park on Saturday.
A past Socceroo, Postecoglou led South Melbourne to championships as a captain and then coach.
Postecoglou later masterminded the Brisbane Roar’s “Roarcelona” dynasty with his attacking style.
He led the Socceroos at the 2014 World Cup and claimed Australia’s first men’s Asian Cup on home soil in 2015.
Postecoglou won the J1 League title with Yokohama F. Marinos in 2019 and claimed the 2021-22 Scottish premiership with Celtic.
Former Matildas vice-captain Dodd played for the national team between the mid 1980s and mid-90s and has made a huge mark off the field.
A massive advocate for gender equality, Dodd successfully campaigned to give millions of girls access to football with the overturning of the hijab ban.
Gardiner was a Matildas midfield mainstay for almost a decade and one of Australia’s finest women’s footballers.
The midfielder played a key role in the 2007 Women’s World Cup squad and the breakthrough 2010 Asian Cup triumph.
Schwab has been a pioneer of both Australian and global player union movements.
The former FIFPro boss has played a crucial role in global sport and human rights movements by negotiating major human rights commitments with international governing bodies including FIFA.
Socceroo Smith was part of Australia’s historic 1956 Olympics squad where he played in both games in Melbourne as a 21-year-old.
He was a foundation member of the committee appointed to create the national Hall of Fame in the mid-1990s. Since his retirement, Smith has worked extensively to organise Socceroos functions and promote the sport.
Pless moved to Hobart from Austria as a child. After a long-playing career, Pless initially focused on coaching.
Since 1978, he has written and photographed extensively on the game in Tasmania and is considered a local football icon.
“The Football Australia Hall of Fame is the highest honour bestowed upon players and participants who have served the game – either on or off the field – with distinction, with no better demonstration of this than our class of 2022,” Football Australia chairman Chris Nikou said in a statement.
All six were nominated via a public process, with the nominees then considered by a panel of Australian football historians.
The panel of historians provided their recommendations to the FA board, with the directors ratifying each person’s elevation.
© AAP
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