At the 2026 World Cup draw, FIFA Peace Prize recipient and U.S. President Donald Trump declared that the sport should truly be called 'football.'
Trump's Call for a Name Change
'There is no question about it. We need to come up with another name for the NFL. It really does not make any sense,' Trump remarked, appearing as a newly enthusiastic follower of the round-ball game.
He is not alone in his view. The term 'soccer' is, in certain parts of the globe, avoided by some fans.
A Scholar's Perspective
As a scholar of the sport who instructs a course titled Soccer and Global Politics, I am frequently confronted with remarks that the word 'soccer' is meaningless and that those who use it evidently know nothing about the beautiful game.
In my view, this disparagement of 'soccer' is not only petty and tiresome but also factually incorrect. It overlooks the sport's origins and the evolution of its language.
Rather than making the word taboo, the football community should welcome it. To grasp why, we must travel back to the beginning.
From 'Association' to 'Assoc' to 'Soccer'
The game has existed in various forms for centuries, but it began to be codified in the mid-19th century.
'Association Football' was devised in 1863 to differentiate it from rugby football, which, ironically, is largely played with the ball in hand.
British university students of the era created their own slang by abbreviating words and adding '-er' to them. Thus, 'rugby' became 'rugger,' and 'association football' was shortened to 'assoc' and slanged into 'soccer.'
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 such as American football, Australian rules football, and Gaelic football in Ireland, 'soccer' became the dominant term. However, British fans began abandoning the word in the 1980s, largely as a response to its adoption in the United States.
Now, particularly in the U.K. but also among fans in the U.S. and Canada who present as 'true' followers of the game, there are attempts to shame those who use the very term that the British invented and proudly used.
That is a pity. After all, using the word 'soccer' has its benefits. The British press continues to use 'soccer' and 'football' interchangeably to avoid repetitive writing. The shorter word is useful for tabloid editors crafting tight headlines. And employing both terms does not reveal ignorance but rather cosmopolitanism.
The widespread use of 'soccer' in Britain is still evident in the ongoing success of authoritative magazine World Soccer, founded in London in 1960; the TV show 'Soccer AM,' which aired every Saturday from 1994 to 2023; the annual British charity match Soccer Aid; and Sky Sports' 'Soccer Saturday.' All document the enduring legacy of the term in Britain, despite the naysayers.
A Shared Vernacular
The beautiful game is also a universal one, with a language shared by some 4 billion people.
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!
About the author: Kirk Bowman is a Professor of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
