Why do some people call football soccer?

"It's called soccer!" - So rang out the chant from United States national team fans when they faced off against England at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

A tongue-in-cheek addition to the USMNT supporters' songbook, it plays on the running argument between European and American devotees of the sport, over whether 'football' or 'soccer' is the most appropriate term.

So, why do some people, including Americans, call football 'soccer'? GOAL takes a look at the background to the linguistic deviation.

Why do Americans call football soccer?

Football (or soccer) was codified in England in 1863, but back then there was more than one version of the game called football - mainly rugby football and association football. While rugby football is mostly played using hands, association football was mostly played using feet.

Winding back to the late 19th century, when the game as we know it was born, as part of a slang practice by the students at Oxford University, the suffix "-er" was added to many words. As such, a five-pound bill would be referred to as a "fiver" and "rugby" was colloquially known as "rugger". Similarly, association football was shortened to "asoccer", after "-er" was added at the end of "asoc" - and later just "soccer".

However, "soccer" did not stick as a nickname in Great Britain and by the mid 20th century association football earned the right to be known as football, while rugby football was more commonly called rugby.

AFP

As the popularity of association football grew across the world, Americans took more interest in a sport that borrowed elements from both rugby football and association football, which was called 'American football' or just 'football' in the U.S.

By the time association football slowly started getting popular in America, the gridiron sport that was already established as 'football' enjoyed linguistic supremacy and the word 'soccer' was commonly used in order differentiate between the two.

Who else calls football soccer?

Apart from the United States and their neighbors Canada, many in Australia, and Ireland call association football 'soccer'.

Interestingly, U.S. Soccer was originally formed as 'The United States Football Association' in 1913, was changed to 'The United States Soccer Football Association' in 1945, before "Football" was dropped altogether to become known as 'The United States Soccer Federation' from 1974.

Conversely, although association football is commonly called soccer in New Zealand, New Zealand Football used 'football' instead of 'soccer' only to stay in line with the customary usage of 'football' as far as formal associations are concerned.

List of words for soccer in different languages

The English word 'football' is also present in various forms across Europe, with football (French), fussball (German) and fútbol (Spanish) used. Interestingly, in Italy, football is called calcio, which is actually closer in sound to the Chinese football game known as cuju.

• COMMENT: Let us know in the comments whether you call it football or soccer and why.