Israel Folau born 3rd April 1989 Minto, south-west Sydney
Moved to Marsden at the start of 2004 (age 14) and went to Marsden State High 2004-2006 (Qld Schoolboys Rugby Union 2005 and Australian Schoolboys 2006). Also played junior rugby league at Goodna Eagles.
2007-2008 (age of 18-19) Melbourne Storm
2009-2010 (age of 20-21) Brisbane Broncos. Bought house for parents in Algester. Signed mid-year 2010 to play AFL in Sydney.
2011-2012 (Age of 22-23) AFL Greater Western Sydney. Bought house for parents in Kellyville in North-west Sydney.
Since 2013 (Age of 24) Full-back at Rugby Union Waratahs in Sydney. In August 2014, part of Waratahs grand final win.
Folau was a supporter of the 2014 Bingham Cup, a rugby competition in support of gay and inclusive rugby. He appeared on the cover of the Star Observer, an Australian LGBTI magazine, to promote the competition.

Since 2014, also part of the Australian Wallabies team at Full-Back. Awarded the Rugby Australia John Eales Medal, the Wallabies' Player of the Year recognition, a record three times, in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Has signed a contract with ARU estimated at $1 million a year.

In July 2015, he signed a deal to play for NTT DoCoMo Red Hurricanes in the Japanese Top League. However, Folau did not play for the club due to injury and the relegation of the team to the Japanese second division.

On 23 October 2016 (Age of 27), Folau announced his engagement to New Zealand netball player Maria Tuta'ia. They were married outdoors on a private estate in Kangaroo Valley, 200 kms south of Sydney on 15 November 2017 (Age of 28).

2018 Played for Australia in September-November (Rugby Championship and Autumn Internationals). Last international match was 24 November 2018 (Age of 29) in Twickenham, London against England.



A message to Folau: The world doesn’t need more judgmental Christians
By Brian Houston
April 15, 2019 — 12.10am

O Israel - why? This plea could be straight from scripture referring to Israel the nation but instead it was being uttered by many last week - including me - about one of Australia's greatest rugby players.

I admire Israel Folau as not only a sportsperson but as a man who won't compromise his beliefs and is not afraid to stand up for Christ. I respect others who have also been criticised for their beliefs, such as Margaret Court. Freedom of religion is paramount in a society like Australia and no one should be condemned for holding firm convictions.

Yet, as Christians, it is equally important to look at ourselves and our own failings and imperfections. If you look at the list of sins that Izzy listed there's not too many people he's left out, including Christians. There isn't a person on earth who hasn't told a lie or put something before God (idolatry).

While sin is a real issue, the God I know and seek to follow is a God of love. He says that He did not come to condemn the world, He came to save it. And as Christians we would do well to follow the example of the founder of our faith. I believe there is a heaven and a hell but if you study scripture you won't read about Jesus screaming to people that they are all going to hell. In fact Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul, all kept their harshest criticism for those who were religious and judgmental.

In 40 years of telling people about the good news of Jesus, I have seen that the "turn or burn", approach to proclaiming the message of Christianity alienates people. Scaring people doesn't draw them into the love of Jesus.

God cared so much for the eternity of humankind that he sent his only son to die in order that he might make a way for restoration and reconciliation. The problem with harsh comments in the media and disparaging statements on social media is that they create a further wedge between God and people.

The world doesn't need more judgmental Christians. In the eyes of many, the church is not relevant to their lives and is seen to be stuck in the past.

But this is not the church I know. The church is a group of diverse (and imperfect) people who have all been captivated and adopted into the same story - with Jesus at the centre. The central storyline of our faith is a story of love and redemption, a story of forgiveness and acceptance, a story of undeserved grace and unreserved mercy. I have been the grateful recipient of all of these truths, and so has Folau, Court and anyone else who has personally experienced the love of Christ.

I would never compromise the integrity of Biblical teaching and I believe that the Bible is clear about the consequences of sin. However, as Christians we are first called to love God and love other people, including those who believe differently to us.

I hope Izzy is extended some grace from all Australians. He is young and sincere and passionate about his relationship with God. We have all made mistakes when it comes to speaking too quickly, judging too harshly or being blinded by our own stubbornness. The world is a better place when we all look at ourselves and recognise our own human failings, and we can extend the same grace to him as we'd like others to show us.

Brian Houston is the global senior pastor of Hillsong Church


Israel Folau believed God broke his ankle against Warriors 'to humble him'
Tim Elliot
16:57, Apr 12 2019

Israel Folau has been spotted at Sydney cafe but refused to comment on the furore over his anti-gay posts.
In this profile of Israel Folau by Tim Elliott first published in September, 2015, the Wallabies star provided an insight into his upbringing, his struggles with his Tongan parents and his conviction that God broke his ankle as a punishment for 'going out, drinking and hooking up with girls'.   

On a cold Saturday night in August last year, some 61,800 people took their seats in Sydney's ANZ Stadium for the Super Rugby grand final. Now in its 19th year, Super Rugby sees 15 teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa battle to win what is widely regarded as rugby union's toughest provincial competition. The home side, the NSW Waratahs, had never won it; their opponents, New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders, are the most successful team in the tournament's history, with seven titles. Yet after an agonisingly close match, the Waratahs triumphed by one point in the final minute, sending the crowd into a cathartic frenzy.

In the minds of many, the player most responsible for the Waratahs' victory was fullback Israel Folau, a tall, strong, supremely fit footballer who had joined the team only two years before. Having received a standing ovation on the field, Folau accompanied his teammates to the after-match function at Ivy nightclub, where the rest of the players celebrated long into the night.

But Folau stayed barely an hour, after which he drove back home to Kellyville, in Sydney's north-west, where he lives with his parents, Eni and Amelia, his sister and two younger brothers. "Mum and Dad weren't able to come to the game," Folau says, "so I stayed up and talked to them about it. Then I went to bed." The next day, while his teammates were either asleep or nursing hangovers, Folau did what he does every Sunday morning: he rose, put on a shirt, and went to church.

Isileli (Israel) Folau is arguably Australia's most celebrated footballer, which is saying something in a country that loves celebrating its footballers. At just 25, he has played at an elite level across three codes: rugby league (NRL, generally referred to as "league"), Australian rules (AFL) and rugby union (known simply as "rugby"). He is a dual international, having represented Australia in league and rugby, the former at the age of 18 years and 194 days, making him at the time the Kangaroos' youngest ever player.

He has also won virtually every gong going: rookie of the year awards in league and rugby, a league State of Origin man of the match, the Super Rugby player of the year, and the John Eales Medal for the best player in Australian rugby. "He's an incredible talent," says Kevin Sheedy, who coached Folau in the AFL. "The only thing he hasn't done is play soccer. Maybe that's next."

Even by the standards of professional footballers, Folau is big: 193 centimetres (six-foot-four), and 103 kilograms, with redwood trunks for thighs and a broad, granite-chinned face like an Easter Island statue. His size gives him a strange, superhero power to shrink a room simply by walking into it, filling it up like a giant in a doll's house. Coupled with his Ferrari-like acceleration and dancing feet, he has become the rarest of things in Australian rugby: a genuine star. He is not the skipper of the national team, the Wallabies, and yet he has become the face of the code, adorning advertisements and Bledisloe Cup match programs. He has even co-written a series of rugby-themed children's books for Random House.

"He is the heir to David Campese," says author and former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons. "Campese was a special player who, when he got the ball in his hands, an electric current went through the stadium. People wondered, 'What's he going to do?' Folau, in the first year he turned out for the Waratahs, was 240 volts."

Yet the most remarkable thing about Folau is his sheer unremarkableness. In a footballing milieu where bad behaviour is commonplace, Folau remains resolutely uncontroversial. He is as shy as a child, sincere, uncomplicated and deeply religious: he doesn't drink, smoke or swear, and he doesn't have a girlfriend. He is the anti-matter equivalent of NRL bad boy Todd Carney, who was sacked last season after being photographed urinating in his own mouth, following a string of other offences. For rugby union, Folau is both saviour and patron saint – a saint with the world's best sidestep.

Folau grew up in a housing estate in Minto, in Sydney's south-west, with his five siblings – four brothers and a sister. His mother Amelia, and father, Eni, had also taken in two cousins, bringing the number of people to 10, all of them crammed into a single- storey, three-bedroom home. "We were joined to our neighbours by a thin brick wall," Folau says. "When they argued, you heard everything."

Then, as now, Minto was a rough neighbourhood. "Right opposite our house was a basketball court that had a burnt car in it every weekend," says his brother, Tevita Folau. "A random car would pull up and the next minute it was on fire. There were sirens all the time, syringes in the gutter."

Weekends were spent going to church (the Folaus were devout Mormons before switching to Assemblies of God in 2011), or playing rugby league at Townson Oval with the local club, the Minto Cobras. Family decisions were made as a group, usually on Monday nights, when the Folaus got together to sing and pray.

Polynesian culture places huge importance on family, where the guiding principle is "what's mine is yours". If one sibling enjoys success, they are expected to share that with their extended clan. This was particularly evident with the Folaus, for whom money was scarce. Eni Folau worked long hours as a security guard at Minto Mall, frequently coming home late and exhausted. The children were raised on tales of their parents' dirt-poor upbringing in Tonga. "Mum didn't have shoes," Israel says. "She was the eldest of 10 kids, and some nights they went without food. That's why, from a young age, I wanted to work hard and change that cycle, to provide not only for my parents but my siblings, too."

In 2004, the family moved to Brisbane, where Eni had got work in a sheet-metal factory. Israel attended Marsden State High School. Just 14 years old, he already weighed 95 kilograms, with plate-like hands and a barnstorming stride. "He was a stallion among geldings," says the school's sports coach, Kim Bray. "The first time I saw him play, he took the ball up and carried six or seven kids with him."

What Bray also saw in Folau was the weight of his parents' expectations, not to mention authority. "One day when he was 16 he came to school really emotional, which was out of character. He had lost his phone, so my wife [who also taught at Marsden] walked him down the street, calling his number." They found his phone, vibrating in the bushes. "But Israel was almost in tears. He really didn't want to tell his mum."

After a period of heart trouble in the mid-2000s, Eni had a bypass, and was forced to stop working. Folau had by this time played league for the Queensland Under-19s (at just 16), and the Australian Schoolboys team. In 2007, he was signed by the Melbourne Storm.

"He was so young, he still had puppy fat on him," Storm coach Craig Bellamy says. But his ability under the high ball was already apparent. One day, the players were having a kick-and-catch session, holding up a pad against which another player would jump and catch the ball. When Folau's turn came, he jumped straight over the pad and landed on the other side.

Folau debuted for the Storm in 2007, on a contract worth just $35,000 a year. He was 17 years old, making him the club's youngest-ever player. He scored the match-winning try in his first game, and went on to cross 20 more times that year, breaking Billy Slater's previous NRL record for the most tries in a debut season. And yet, he says, "I was so homesick. I would call home 10 times a day."

Folau was sending everything he earned to his parents in Brisbane, who gave him an allowance of $150 a week. While his team-mates went drinking, Folau stayed in his room; when they went to a movie, he had to ring his father for permission to go. "His dad was the person he spoke about the most," Bellamy says. "They had that close father-son relationship, only tighter."

A close friend of Folau's puts it another way: "Izzy was scared of his dad, and he hates conflict."

The other presence in his life was the Mormon Church, to which Folau paid 10 per cent of his earnings as a tithe. Mormonism is an unorthodox branch of Christianity that forbids the consumption of alcohol, tea, coffee and tobacco – and sport on Sundays. ("That had always been a problem at school," says Kim Bray. "If there was a game on Sunday, Izzy's parents had to get permission from the church for him to play. Quite a few people up here play on Friday night, for that reason.")

Mormons also have an obligation to do a two-year pilgrimage involving missionary work, but Folau never did his. Bray, who's had lots of Mormon boys play in his teams, says the church sometimes gives high stature members a free pass on the mission work, preferring they pursue their careers (Folau featured prominently on the famousmormons.net website).

"In the end," Bray says, "the church went, 'Hang on, this kid could be special for us. We have Israel Folau as a Mormon!' "

When people talk about Israel Folau, the word they use most is "humility". "He doesn't have an outward ego, which is unusual for a professional sportsman," says Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson.

Part of the reason for this is that Folau sees himself as only partially responsible for his success: the real credit goes to God, who, Folau believes, intervenes directly in his life on a daily basis. "He is what controls me to make sure I'm stable," he tells me. "He is my GPS." Folau believes God broke his ankle during an NRL game against the NZ Warriors in 2009 to "teach me a lesson". "I was getting a big head," he says. "Going out, drinking and hooking up with girls. I had to be humbled."

By this time, Folau had moved north from Melbourne back to Brisbane, where he'd signed a $600,000 a year contract with the Broncos. He spent most of his first year's pay buying a house for his parents: a two-storey four-bedder in Algester for $538,000. "When I done that, I was happy," he says.

Despite his six-figure salary, Eni kept his son on a tight leash: Israel had no access to his money and was given a small weekly allowance. He was allowed a phone, but it was prepaid, and kept running out. Frustrated by this, Israel asked his agent, Isaac Moses, to come to their home and talk to his father. (Israel was so nervous he disappeared upstairs for the duration of the conversation.) Moses told Eni that, at the very least, Israel needed a proper phone: "It looks strange when he can't call people back." Eni eventually consented.

Yet the older Folau still cast a long shadow. In 2011, Eni broke with the Mormons after questioning church doctrine and going on Tongan TV to criticise some of its more idiosyncratic tenets, such as founder Joseph Smith's revelations concerning plural marriage. When Eni changed from Mormonism to AOG, so did Israel. (Folau's parents would not be interviewed for this story.)

And Folau remained unhappy in Brisbane. "I knew I wasn't living the morals I'd been taught," he says. At the end of 2009, when he came off contract with the Broncos, he was courted by rugby, but was taken aback when a top ARU official openly expressed doubts that Folau "had what it took to make it in union". (The official no longer works at the ARU.)

The AFL had no such reservations; it also had a lot more money. And so, in 2011, Folau ran out for start-up club the Greater Western Sydney Giants in a deal said to be worth $6 million over four years. The move was widely regarded as a cynical marketing ploy, something then-AFL chief Andrew Demetriou tacitly acknowledges. "AFL is a foreign game in western Sydney," he says. "The thing about Izzy was that he had originally come from western Sydney. He was a name out there, and any local name was good."

Folau worked hard to adapt to AFL: he improved his endurance and shed 12 kilos. But his on-field performances were a disaster. He seemed oddly static, and had difficulty reading the game. "It's difficult to adjust to," says Kevin Sheedy, who was the Giants' coach. "It's a bigger field, you have 36 players on it, and it's a 360-degree game." At the time, Geelong forward Cameron Mooney was more blunt: "He doesn't know what to do out there ... He is a statue watching the birds."

Folau was stung by the commentary. "If I'd had my way, I would still have been playing NRL," he says now. "But I had to do what was best for my family." Shortly after having signed with GWS Giants, he bought his parents another house – for $750,000 in Kellyville – where he lives with them today.

But failure was never Folau's thing. Two years into a four-year deal, he rang Demetriou and said he wanted out. This time, rugby would not miss its chance.

Folau's switch to rugby, in December 2012, was not without controversy. Some said he had reneged on a handshake deal to play league with the Parramatta Eels, a suggestion Isaac Moses flatly rejects. Others called him "mercenary", despite the fact Folau forfeited millions playing AFL to take less money in rugby.

But the deal marked a turning point for Folau. "Coming to the Waratahs was the first time I felt I gained some independence. I was telling my parents I had to go out on my own, and learn and grow, and if I made mistakes, then so be it."

Eni took it hard. "I was nervous about telling him," Folau says. "But I felt I was ready."

Folau is now a fixture in rugby. His explosive, broken-field running places him at the centre of Wallaby coach Michael Chieka's plan to play a more open, entertaining brand of football. The ARU has signed him until 2018 on a contract thought to be worth $1 million a year, making him the code's highest-paid player.

But Folau's horizons stretch further than football. "I really want to be a mentor to other Islander kids, because I understand the pressure they are under from their parents," he says.

In 2013, Mosese Fotuaika, a rising NRL star and friend of Folau's, hanged himself. "My parents know his parents well," says Folau. "Moses committed suicide because of the pressures that come from the parents. I see young Polynesian kids coming through, I can see the stress they're carrying from home, because most Islander parents are exactly the same in the way they operate. They mean well, but you can change the method of the way they do it, and I want to be a part of that."

Discussing the issue makes Folau anxious, and he smiles nervously, revealing an unlikely bit of bling. A gold tooth. "It's common among Tongans," he explains. "I got it done in 2009, on my first visit to Tonga. My aunty offered to melt down a gold ring that meant a lot to her and my family, and I jumped at it."

In Tongan culture, a gold tooth can signify a coming of age. "People always ask me about the tooth," Folau says, "especially because I smile a lot. But it makes me happy when they ask. The tooth reminds me of my family every day. It connects me to my roots."