The World Cup begins in just over a day so I thought I’d update and repost an article I wrote about the debate over what to call soccer/football.
While living in the UK, I learned that British people hate the use of ‘soccer’ to describe their favorite sport. As a culturally sensitive person, I dutifully referred to the sport as ‘football’ and referred to America’s most popular sport as ‘American football’. I was cool with that. I’m in their country; I’ll follow their customs.
Just like I gave in to the use of ‘lifts’ instead of ‘elevators’, ‘trainers’ instead of ‘sneakers’, and ‘trousers’ instead of ‘pants’. Now that I’m back in an American English environment, I’ve slowly resorted back to my native dialect. Still, I find myself using ‘mobile’ instead of ‘cell phone’; it just sounds cooler. And I’ve given in to the near universal use of ‘toilet’ instead of ‘restroom’. It’s a distasteful word to American ears, but just about every country outside of the US use some form of it.
What surprised me was the anger and bitterness towards the American use of the word ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’. It is somehow the symbol of American imperialism. And this attitude extended to some of my other European and South American friends too.
Puzzled by the vitriol, I did a little research. So I’m going to give you a little history lesson and dispel some myths about what we call that sport with a bunch of people running around kicking a ball into the opposing team’s net.
Myth 1: Soccer is an American term.
The word originated in England back in the mid 19th century. Soccer was the original shorthand expression to refer to the sport. It was shortened from association football. At the time, there were many kinds of football, so it needed to be distinguished from all the other forms. American football and rugby are some of the other forms of football that also arose from those earlier sports.
Myth 2: The US is the only country that calls it soccer.
I was surprised to find that in Ireland, they also refer to the sport as soccer, and view the use of the word with anti-British-imperialist pride. Other countries that call it soccer include Word Cup participants, Australia, New Zealand, Japan (called sacca), and World Cup host South Africa. Add Canada (including Quebec where it’s called, not joking, ‘le soccer’), and most Pacific Islands.
Interestingly, all the countries, except Japan, were former colonies of Britain. Apparently, the official national soccer organizations in Australia and South Africa have succumbed to using ‘football’, but the general populace still cling to the more counter-hegemonic term.
Myth 3: Americans want the rest of the world to call it soccer too, as part of an insidious imperialist plot.
I assure you, I don’t know one American who really gives a damn what anyone calls it. The widespread use of ‘football’ stems from past British colonialism (aside from the countries listed above). Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries tried to replace the English word with native words (balompie and ludopedio, respectively). But were unsuccessful against the onslaught of British hegemony.
Myth 4: Well, okay a few countries say ‘soccer’. But the rest of the world calls it ‘football’.
Not so. Of the 32 World Cup participants only 4 countries actually use ‘football’. That would be England and its former West African colonies, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.
Fifteen other countries use variations of the word football, like ‘Fußball’ (Germany), ‘fútbol’ (the 7 Spanish speaking countries), ‘le foot’ (the 2 francophone nations), ‘Voetbal’ (the Dutch), ‘fodbold’ (the Danes), and ‘fudbal’ (Serbia).
What about some of the other World Cup teams? Football powerhouse Italy calls it ‘calcio’, which means kick. The Slovenians call it ‘nogomet’, which means leg sweep. It’s ‘fucik’ in Slovakia (careful how you say that one). The Greeks call it ‘podosfero’. The Swiss call it ‘schútte’. Both the Korean teams call it ‘chook-gu’. In Algeria, and the rest of the Arabic speaking world, it’s ‘kurat al-qadam’.
Here are some of my other favorites around the world. In China it’s ‘zuqiu’ (I strained my neck trying to pronounce that). In Polish, it’s ‘pika nozna’. The Czechs call it ‘kopana’, which also means kick.
Obviously, the terms used for soccer are as diverse as the world itself.
Myth 4: Fine. But the sport came from England so it should be called whatever they want.
Games involving kicking a ball has been found in nearly all cultures throughout human history. The earliest recorded sport using a ball and feet control date from the 3rd century BC in China, and it was called ‘cuju’. Maybe we should be calling the sport ‘cuju’, instead of the insidious British imperial term.
So there you have it. I realize that the US is the top dog in the world, wreaking imperialist havoc, so it’s fashionable to bash all things American. But there are many forms of football, and association football, or soccer, is just one of them. The pattern seems to be that where other forms of football are popular, that sport has taken on that term. Thus, what looks to me like rugby is called football in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. And what’s football to me, looks like ebbing imperial influence in Great Britain.
The Quilting Sword 
Very interesting. I often play ‘soccer’ with my grandson. Regardless of what you call it, it’s fun 🙂
Curious to know whether or not the original ball was a human head wrapped in leather (as was the case in the movie version of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ though they may have been playing polo instead of ‘kicking’ a ball around) I came across this article:
http://champions-league-betting.com/brief-history-of-the-football
thanks for that entertaining link. oh my! i’m glad we’ve evolved to leather.
what an entertaining post. You’ve captured so well the insidious apologies from an expat living in UK. I also remember struggling with “toilet”.
all participating teams world cup so excited to get the champion
You are wrong. There was rugby-football and asocciation-football in order to differentiate them they called it Rugger to Rugby and Soccer to aSOCCiation-football. Then in US FOOTBALL was established before the SOCCER and that’s why in order to differentiate FOOTBALL to aSOCCiation-Football , the Americans called by the slang term SOCCER.
Nothing about imperalism or something. Other countries that don’t speak english shouldn’t call it football since that is English and should translate it : balonpie, peid balle, pe bola, etc. like the AMERICAN FOOTBALL is translated or you can call it soccer. What it is clear is that soccer fans don’t even know the origin of that ugly game.
ignorant american ^
I adore your wp template, wherever did you download it through?
It’s one of the example templates that comes with WP 😉
For one, it’s not “pika nozna” in Polish, but rather “piłka nożna” (or pilka nozna with out the special Polish letters).
And two, that means exactly football. Nuff said.
thanks for the correction, jarek.
Football describes the sport, ball used by the foot.
Soccer might be short for association football, but the association bit is just the organizing body, some countries call it federation. FA means Football Association, football is the sport, the association is the governing body, so football has no name other than football.
Rugby is rugby. Gridiron is gridiron. There’s Gaelic ball, & Aussie ball. But there is only one football, the game where the ball is used by the foot more than anything else, or than any other sport.
It’s actually called futbal in Slovakia, fucík is informal term derived from futbal (which is derived from football, hope that’s obvious:)
In Czech they have their own word kopaná but they also use term fotbal.
I don’t have my own research on usage of ‘football’ so all I did is add the two use cases I know about, maybe it will help you to have more complete data).
There’s so many things wrong with this article. Most of it is just incorrect. And in Ireland we say football, not soccer. Do some more research please and pay attention next time.
You are wrong South Africa Football Association (SAFA) not SASA u still wanna argue what they call it in South Africa ?, and please do some research Cameroon was a French colony thats why they have French as an official language
I see a lot of interesting articles on your page. You have to spend
a lot of time writing, i know how to save you a lot of time,
there is a tool that creates unique, SEO friendly articles in couple of seconds,
just type in google – laranita’s free content source
Too much wrong with this article I can’t even begin. All I want to know is how in the world you can’t see that Fußball, Fútbol and Le Football (also shortened to “le foot) etc. are variations in spelling the exact same word? “Voetbal” actually means literally (not figuratively) football in Dutch and the same goes for other languages including the German “Fußball”. So yes, of those countries do indeed call it football.
Ireland is unique in that we are interchangeable. Some rural people will refer to it as soccer as to differentiate it from Gaelic football, but many don’t preferring to call it football, especially in Dublin. It just depends on where you are and who you’re talking to.
He wants fewer bare facts in The News and more context and explanation.
What you need to do is rather write a review and not just rewriting the news.
Believing the downturn to be only temporary, you actively
seek employment while upgrading your skills
through short-term courses.
I read a lot of interesting articles here. Probably you spend a lot
of time writing, i know how to save you a lot of work,
there is an online tool that creates high quality, google friendly posts in seconds, just search in google – laranitas free content source
in Québec its just Soccer because say ( Le Soccer ) its like saying ( The Soccer )
ps: sorry for my english a talk french
Only in America and Australia it’s called football because they can’t think of another name to call their pathetic dumb sport, football not hold ball it shows that that are lame and their sport is rubbish, in English football is the name across every major continent , soccer is just a name prob created and said that’s the alternative face it America and Australia have no idea about sports and only care their stupid no1 sport is the major winner l, 2 sports associated with rapists pedos gays corrupt media gambling addicts and racists football we might dive and end in nil all draw but at least we for hold the ball all game and run like a bunch of idiots bumping into people big deal fat men ain’t everyone