The Australian men’s national soccer team is known worldwide as the Socceroos, one of the most recognizable nicknames in international sports. But the name didn’t come from a governing body or marketing campaign. Rather, it emerged from a uniquely Australian mixture of sport, culture and national identity.
As Australia competes at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the story behind the Socceroos nickname remains a reminder of how the country’s most famous sporting symbol became attached to its national soccer team.
How the Socceroos Got Their Name
The word “Socceroos” is a portmanteau — that is, a word created by combining two other words. In this case, the word “soccer” is combined with “kangaroo.” That’s not surprising, because other Australian national teams also take their name from the kangaroo. In rugby union, Australia is the Wallabies. In rugby league, simply the Kangaroos. The Australian national women’s field hockey team is, yes, the Hockeyroos. Association football, or “soccer,” needed its own kangaroo-inspired moniker.
The name traces to Sydney journalist Tony Horstead, who wrote a soccer column for the Sydney Daily Mirror under the byline “Hotspur.” In late 1967, Horstead ran a reader contest to come up with a nickname after the Australian team returned from a goodwill tour of South Vietnam. Readers overwhelmingly chose “Emus.” “Socceroos” was not among the suggestions at all, according to Football Australia.
Then came May 3, 1972. The Australian Soccer Federation launched a formal World Cup qualifying bid backed by $100,000 in sponsorship from several corporations including Pepsi Cola Australia, Travelodge, Philips Industries and News Limited. ASF President Sir Arthur George unveiled the campaign’s official icon. Of course, it was a kangaroo. To be specific, it was a kangaroo wearing football boots encircled by the text “World Cup 1974 Socceroo.”
Horstead ran with it the next morning.
“The Socceroos will be the best prepared sporting team ever to represent Australia in a major event,” he wrote in the Mirror, turning the mascot logo into a team identity. By September 1972, he was describing the squad heading on an Asian tour as “Australia’s Socceroos,” using the name as though his readers already knew it well, Football Australia noted.
The dedicated football press adopted the term early in 1973. Mainstream dailies followed by year’s end — though not without protest. The Sydney Morning Herald argued on its front page in November 1973 that the team “can surely do without the name ‘Socceroos.'” The Herald proposed the popular “Emus” as the proper alternative. Australia’s qualification for the West Germany tournament settled the argument. By the time the 1974 FIFA World Cup kicked off, the “Socceroos” name was universal.
Why Australians Call the Sport ‘Soccer,’ Not ‘Football’
Though British fans have a long history of mocking other countries that call the sport “soccer,” the term itself is, in fact, British. Oxford students in the 1880s shortened “association football” to “assoccer,” then further to “soccer,” according to a BBC history of the word. It remained a casual nickname in Britain, but in countries where “football” referred to a different sport, the term “soccer” became genuinely useful.
Australia was one of those countries. Australian Rules Football had been called “football” across Victoria and several other states since the late 1800s. Rugby codes dominated New South Wales and Queensland. When association football arrived, largely through British immigration, “soccer” was the most practical available label.
The governing body pushed back for two decades. Soccer Australia became Football Federation Australia in January 2005, deliberately aligning with FIFA’s international terminology. The body rebranded again to Football Australia in 2020. Neither branding succeeded in displacing “soccer” from everyday Australian speech. FFA’s first CEO, John O’Neill, predicted the “Socceroos” label would fade after the rebrand. He was wrong. The name outlasted the transition entirely.
The two terms now coexist. “Football” is the official preference. “Soccer” is what most Australians still say — and what the Socceroos have answered to, without interruption, since 1974.
Why Is Australia Called the Socceroos? World Cup Nickname Explained