Kilifi Uele (born November 14, 1974) is a Tongan

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a midfielder for Veitongo and the Tonga national football team. According to the RSSSF, Uele is the second oldest goalscorer in the history of international football.

International career

Uele made his debut internationally in 1994, with his team winning second place at the

1994 Polynesia Cup The Polynesia Cup 1994 was the first Polynesia-wide tournament ever held. It took place in Western Samoa (later known as Samoa) and four teams participated: Tahiti, Western Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga and served for the first time as Oceania N ...

. He went on to score three international goals, including one against

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

in 2017 at the age of 43. In January 2020, Uele, at the age of 45, represented Veitongo FC at the qualifying stage of the

2020 OFC Champions League The 2020 OFC Champions League was the 19th edition of the Oceanian Club Championship, Oceania's premier club football tournament organized by the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), and the 14th season under the current OFC Champions League name ...

. Uele also plays

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or beasal, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand. Whilst football has been played informally on beaches, the introduction of ''beach soccer'' was an a ...

internationally, and was part of the Tongan team making its debut at the

2019 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup The 2019 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup was the sixth edition of the OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (previously called the OFC Beach Soccer Championship), the premier beach soccer tournament contested by Oceanian men's national teams, organised by t ...

.Tonga's football maestro
/ref>

International goals

:''Scores and results list Tonga's goal tally first.''

Managerial career

Uele is the Technical Director of the Tonga Football Association, a post he has held since 2005. Uele coached his country's

women's team A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardle ...

to win a silver medal at the

2007 OFC Women's Championship The 2007 OFC Women's Championship of women's association football took place in Lae, Papua New Guinea between 9 April and 13 April. It was the eighth edition of the tournament. The tournament was also known as the OFC Women's World Cup Qualifier, ...

. Uele was also the head coach of his country's U-19 women's team when they took runner-up in the OFC U-19 Women's Championship in 2006, losing 6–0 to New Zealand in the finals. Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Uele helped run a new project to promote women's football in the more remote islands of Tonga. Later in 2020, Uele said his main focus was on the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the women's national association football teams organised ...

.Kilifi Uele, the grand maestro of Pacific football
/ref>

References

Living people 1974 births Tongan footballers Tonga men's international footballers Men's association football midfielders Veitongo FC players Association football managers by women's national team {{Tonga-footy-bio-stub