Here come the not-so-All Whites

OPINION: I'm proud to say the All Whites are no longer – all white, of course. Twenty years ago the nickname of the New Zealand football team could have been a sensitive issue at a World Cup on the African continent.

It could have sent entirely the wrong signal to those who did not know the moniker applied to the colour of the players' uniform, not their skin.

Now, some 16 years after South Africa's first democratic election, the All Whites name is no longer likely to raise ripples anywhere.

It's rarely invoked anyway. It's a brand best reserved for domestic consumption.

No-one could now mistake the All Whites as a racially selected team. I couldn't help but reflect on that fact at training yesterday in Daveyton – a predominantly black township on the outskirts of Benoni, near Johannesburg.

How times have changed since the New Zealand football team was primarily comprised of British expatriates. Of the All Whites' likely lineup for next Tuesday's World Cup opener against Slovakia, only two, Tommy Smith (England) and Shane Smeltz (Germany) were born overseas.

Defender Winston Reid, despite living half his life in Denmark, is proud of his Maori heritage, midfielder Jeremy Christie's whanau are from Northland, while midfielder Leo Bertos and striker Rory Fallon have Maori mothers.

Football in New Zealand has long been characterised as a mainly middle-class Pakeha sport. There were few Maori playing when our national league began 40 years ago in 1970, and there aren't huge numbers now.

But our greatest footballer, Wynton Rufer, has a Maori mum who, like Fallon's, hails from the East Coast. Heremaia Ngata was also an All Whites stalwart in the 1990s.

It may take another generation, but the All Whites will eventually become much more "representative" of New Zealand's demographic divergence of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Glance around your local junior football fields on a Saturday morning and you'll see more Maori, Pasifika and Asian players chasing the round ball.

Some will almost certainly graduate to the national ranks one day, which may change or temper the All Whites' traditionally Anglocentric style of play.

But now that we have four Maori players in the All Whites, isn't it time to organise a rousing haka?

Regrettably, Fifa, world football's governing body, does not encourage expressions of national culture before World Cup matches. That is one of the few areas where rugby has it over the world's most popular game.

The Mexican crowds lapped it up when the All Whites pulled out their haka at the 1999 Confederations Cup finals in Guadalajara. I'm sure Jeremy Christie could organise a sneaky one in South Africa.

- © Fairfax NZ News