structural:reformatting, quality:corruption, structural:expansion, stylistic:style_transfer
Football

Football is the most popular sport. With more than 30,000 licensed players for a population exceeding 850,000 inhabitants, it remains the sport of choice for young people. Although the highest level of competition called the First Division of Réunion is equivalent to a division d'honneur in metropolitan France (DH), all the youngsters hope to play at the highest level one day.

This has been the case for players such as Laurent Robert, Florent Sinama-Pongolle, Guillaume Hoarau, Dimitri Payet, Benoit Tremoulinas, Melvine Malard (the only six Reunionese to have played for the French national team), Bertrand Robert, Thomas Fontaine, Ludovic Ajorque, Fabrice Abriel (of La Réunion descent) and Wilfried Moimbe (of Réunion descent), to name but a few. The territory has its own team, the Réunion national football team.