Mr Frank Farina OAM

Frank spent his early childhood in Papua New Guinea, growing up in Cairns, where he played with Mareeba United in the Queensland State League at the age of 16 and won a Scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra as a 17 year old.

Frank began his national soccer league career with the Canberra Arrows in 1983 and also played with Sydney City and Club Marconi before making the move overseas to play in Belgium, France and Italy. In Australia, he twice won each of Player of the year, Leading Goal Scorer of the Year and Most Entertaining Player.

In Belgium he won the best foreign player, as well as the Leading Goal Scorer award in 1991. He represented Australia on 86 occasions, including the World Youth Club in Mexico City in 1983, the 1986, 1990, and 1994 World Cup campaigns, and the 1988 Olympics.

In the green and gold, Frank made 70 Socceroo appearances scoring 14 goals for his country and was involved in the 1985, 1989 and 1993 World Cup campaigns. He retired from international competition in 1993.

Frank returned to Australia in 1995 to play with the Brisbane Strikers. In 1996-97, he became player-coach of the Strikers and guided them to victory in the National Soccer League (NSL) Grand Final in May 1997 when they defeated Sydney united 2-0 before a record crowd for a domestic game at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

In a 17-year playing career, he played 360 League games in five countries and scored 167 goals, the best game ratio of any Australian player in domestic competition.

He was appointed as the first Australian-born coach of the Socceroos in August 1999, and his impressive national coaching stats are 31 games with 18 wins, 5 draws and 8 losses, including wins over world champions France, and a win over football powerhouse, Brazil at the FIFA Confederations Cup in June 2001.