“There’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL. It really doesn’t make any sense,” said Trump, an apparently new convert to the round-ball game.
To me, this disparagement of the word “soccer” is not only petty and tiresome – it is also incorrect. It ignores the roots of the sport and the development of the language of the game.
Rather than making the word taboo, the football ecosystem should embrace it. To understand why, let’s go back to the beginning.
British university students created their own slang at the time by abbreviating words and adding “-er” to them. Thus, “rugby” became “rugger” and “association football” was shortened to “assoc” and slanged to “soccer.”
And this term “soccer” was freely and proudly used in the British press and in public for nearly a century, until the 1980s.
In countries with other established codes of football – American football, Australian rules football and Gaelic football in Ireland – “soccer” became the dominant term. But British fans began abandoning the word in the 1980s, largely as a response to the embrace of the term in the States. And now, in the U.K. especially – but also among fans in the U.S. and Canada who present as “true” fans of the game – there are attempts to shame those who use the very term that the British invented and proudly used.
And that’s a pity. After all, using the word “soccer” has benefits. The British press continues to use “soccer” and “football” interchangeably to avoid repetitive writing. The shorter word is useful for tabloid editors when creating tight headlines. And using both words does not reveal that a person is ignorant but rather cosmopolitan.
Language evolves, and fans today equally understand “football,” “soccer,” “calcio,” “futebol” or “fútbol.”
Embracing all the variations of the beautiful game enriches the conversation. It illustrates the sport’s globalization and universal language, a shared vernacular that cuts across identities.
And besides, nobody wants the war that would ensue if American football fans were forced to find another name!
