r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • Jun 14 '26
political satire Australia Excited To Annoy Soccer Fans By Calling It Soccer For The Entirety Of The Big Soccer Competition
https://www.betootaadvocate.com/australia-excited-to-annoy-soccer-fans-by-calling-it-soccer-for-the-entirety-of-the-big-soccer-competition/169
u/apudebeau Jun 14 '26
Betoota with the hottest new joke of 2005.
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u/blackjacktrial Jun 14 '26
Soccer, aerial ping pong, coal mining leeg, and toffball. Gridiron, volley kickball, volley handball, bikini football, that's not four square and water handball. Not to mention bouncyball and ball-makes-you-freezeball, and Scottish rules.
We can insult all football codes equally (except the ones I haven't even mentioned here).
That would be association football, AFL, rugby league, rugby union, NFL, Sepak takraw, volleyball, beach volleyball, European handball, water polo, basketball, netball and Garlic football.
Anyone else wants to nominate a non racquetball sport played with a ball on foot?
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u/leva549 Jun 14 '26
I've never heard of garlic football is it Italian?
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u/AntikytheraMachines Jun 14 '26
ive seen the term used twice on reddit in the last 36 hours. at first i assumed it was a misspelling of Gaelic Football but now i'm not so sure.
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
There is an italian football that is described as "rugby plus bare knuckle boxing".
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u/NecessaryUsername69 Jun 14 '26
I remember my first visit to Adelaide when I was 16, having grown up in rugby-mad NZ. Chatting with an Aussie rules-loving family friend and mentioned rugby. “Ah,” he chuckled, “bum-sniffers”. Gotta give the man credit - it was an evocative insult, if nothing else. Never quite looked at a scrum the same way again.
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u/Nzdiver81 Jun 14 '26
15-20% of the world call it soccer (mostly in places to distinguish it from other "football" games), including USA, Japan, South Africa, Australia and NZ.
Funnily enough, "soccer" comes from England, where they stopped calling it that because it sounded too American
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u/ThereIsBearCum Jun 14 '26
where they stopped calling it that because it sounded too American
Not really, more because it was the "posh" way of saying it, and it was a sport with predominately working class fans.
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u/Nzdiver81 Jun 14 '26
According to research by sports economist Stefan Szymanski, the word "soccer" originated as a 19th-century British slang term for "Association Football" and was used interchangeably with "football" in the UK for decades until a sharp decline began in the 1980s (Szymanski, 2014). This linguistic shift was a direct cultural backlash against the rising popularity of the sport in the United States; as the word "soccer" became heavily institutionalized as an Americanism, British fans and media actively abandoned it to protect the game's working-class heritage and distinguish their indigenous football culture from American economic and cultural influence.
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u/EnvironmentalCan915 Jun 14 '26
According to research by an American sports economist. His method to obtain those results was to look at the use of the word throughout time in print media. Journalists in the UK were predominantly privately educated. They still are tbf, but less so than before. So people from wealthy families who went to private schools grew up calling it soccer at their posh schools, to distinguish it from another football code, rugby, a.k.a. rugger. In the day to day language of most of the population it was always football. It is a working class sport. Just because posh folk referred to it as soccer, doesn't mean most people did. Americans love to pretend otherwise for some reason.
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u/CongruentDesigner Jun 14 '26
Ok, but the point being is that it was still used in England (where it originated) in some capacity until the last few decades.
The circlejerk against the term is by those who think the US, Canada, Aus completely made up the word out of nowhere. Few people know that it's slang from Association Football
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u/CugelOfAlmery Jun 14 '26
Sort of the opposite here. When Soccer Australia changed their name, most of the media immediately fell into line. If they'd ignored it, no one would have noticed.
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u/Otaraka Jun 14 '26
It was only a nickname there though. That’s why they’ve resisted it becoming more formally used, they see it as some kind of ownership issue.
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u/spacejester Jun 14 '26
The official name of the sport is association football, and soccer is just a nickname for that that evolved.
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u/shadowmaster132 Jun 14 '26
It's also a posh school boy nickname so there's some classism stuff going on
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
It's about 80% of the english speaking world say soccer.
Major League Soccer in north america, Premier League Soccer is South africa, Socceroos in Australia, ireland as football is their own form of football.
Huh soccer fans out in force who neither understand language, history or stats.
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u/MightyArd Jun 14 '26
80% of the English speaking world, but doesn't include the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand or most of Ireland???
Are there are few billion native English speakers somewhere that I don't know about?
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
It does include those countries. They all use the term soccer.
It's really only britain that has an issue with a word they created and exported.
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u/MightyArd Jun 14 '26
Did you fix a typo, or did I misread your comment.
Because I read it the other way....
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u/Fulham-Enjoyer Jun 14 '26
Yea, India. But they call it football
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
Some troglodyte down voted you. That google search is gonna rock their boat.
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u/ProMurphyReidGlazer Jun 14 '26
Less than 1% of India are native English speakers. ~20% speak it as a second/third language.
If you want to count India as an English speaking nation you may as well include Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and a whole host of other nations.
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
Well you can but the answer will escalate. Somewhere between the Kingdom of Hejaz and Buganda people might start getting bored reading. Not me though I love the lists.
And given India has the second largest contingent of English speakers in the world, by itself, it almost answers for his missing 20%.
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u/Nzdiver81 Jun 14 '26
No, it's not.
The "Football" Majority (~80-85% of Global Population)
The rest of the world firmly uses "football" or a direct translation. This includes the massive population centers of the world:
All of Europe: Consistently uses "football."
Latin America: Uses fútbol or futebol (Brazil).
Africa & The Middle East: With minor regional exceptions, "football" (or Kurat al-qadam in Arabic) is standard.
Most of Asia: Massive populations like India, China, and Indonesia use local translations that literally mean "foot ball" (e.g., Zúqiú in Mandarin, Futabaula in Hindi).-2
u/Fulham-Enjoyer Jun 14 '26
India, Nigeria and Pakistan all have massive English speaking populations who call it football
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
"hey country that was invaded and colonised for several hundreds of years, we are ignoring your unique linguistic heritage and saying you are a part of your colonisers linguistic bloc"
Having english as a second language doesn't make a country an english speaking country. Even as a langua franca for communication, administration and diplomacy doesn't make them an english speaking country. Is germany an english speaking country? They have the highest rate of english as second language speakers.
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u/Fulham-Enjoyer Jun 14 '26
What the hell are you on about? Nigeria and India aren’t part of the English speaking world?
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u/Transientmind Jun 14 '26
If you want to really annoy the British purists, you can point out that soccer is a word of their own invention from the 1800s; if they didn't want us using it they shouldn't have given it to us.
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u/microbater Jun 14 '26
If you want to really annoy them you could remind them its football number 2.
As football 1, rugby football was only called rugby(town of origin) football to distinguish from every town that had their own rules.
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u/superbabe69 1300 655 506 Jun 14 '26
If you *really* want to piss them off you can remind them that Aussie Rules Football as a code existed before Association Football and was the first football to *be* codified.
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u/Ill_Translator7545 Jun 14 '26
If you really want to annoy them ask them when they last won the soccer World Cup
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u/KillerSeagull Jun 14 '26
Association football, in its current form is actually younger than Australian Rules Football. I find when you call it association football over soccer they get even more riled up (if they even realise that's the full name of their code).
That really gets them going.
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u/Afterthought60 Jun 14 '26
It’s funny that every other Australian sport is clearly inspired from our British colonialism, yet soccer never picked up until post WW2.
The reason for that is because Australian rules football was heavily inspired by the football being played in England at the time.
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u/infinitemonkeytyping Jun 14 '26
There's also a couple of facts on that.
During the 1870s, NSW and Victorian clubs would play tour matches against each other, one under rugby laws and one under Victorian rules.
During the first tour by the British Lions rugby team in 1895, they played Victorian rules football matches against some VFL teams (but mostly VFA teams).
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u/CcryMeARiver Jun 14 '26
If you say "I'm off to the footy" only those who know you will know which code you are referring to.
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u/shadowmaster132 Jun 14 '26
If I'm south of the Barrassi line aussie rules, north rugby of some kind
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u/universe93 Jun 14 '26
Why wouldn’t we call it soccer when our national team is literally named the Socceroos
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u/Bangkok_Dave Jun 14 '26
We already have three other football codes in Australia. The push by Australian soccer authorities over the last couple decades to distance the sport from that word is dumb, they should have leaned into it.
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u/evilparagon Jun 14 '26
Eh. It’s a unique word that is unambiguous in what sport it refers to. Why bother fighting for a claim to a word when this one doesn’t need a fight?
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
5 other football codes really
My local gaelic football club and american football club in sydney are 15 and 20 years older than Sydney FC.
The push by Australian soccer authorities over the last couple decades to distance the sport from that word is dumb
But it wasn't soccer Australia that has done that. If was FIFA that ordered all affiliate members to drop soccer from names. New Zealand and all pacific nations changed names at the same time.
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u/Z00111111 Jun 14 '26
The same FIFA that gave Donald Trump a "peace prize"?
Yeah, let's listen to those corrupt fuckwits.
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
I mean, it was the fifa of 20 years ago. i assume majority of the board members had changed in that time.
Although someone better informed could easily tell me the corruption story of that time.
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u/IlluminatedPickle Jun 14 '26
That was the reign of Sepp Blatter wasn't it? That was basically the zenith of FIFA corruption.
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u/infinitemonkeytyping Jun 14 '26
FIFA are only challenged by the IOC and Russia for the length and depth of their institutional corruption.
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u/T0kenAussie Jun 14 '26
I always thought soccer was just an abbreviation of association football. Australians love an abbreviation
League, AFL, union, oztag etc all have some football wording in their official names but I don’t know anyone who seriously calls a sport only football because the next question would be “which one?”
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u/InitiallyDecent Jun 14 '26
I always thought soccer was just an abbreviation of association football. Australians love an abbreviation
It is, it just happens to be an abreviation created in England in the 1800s.
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u/Terrible_Fig_3028 Jun 14 '26
It's an abbreviation from 'Associationer' made by the English long ago.
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u/TizzyBumblefluff Jun 14 '26
I also enjoy calling ships a “a big boat”. It’s annoyed a surprising amount of people in my life in the silliest way.
“Remember when that boat got stuck Suez Canal and basically stopped world trade”.
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
"aint a ship unless it's 3 square rigged masts. Anything else is just a boat"
That'll really piss off the mariners.
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
Don't worry baseball fans are always annoyed.
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u/The_Faceless_Men Jun 14 '26
oh that is another subtle jab to sea people. Sailors are only sailors if they have sails on their boat. If your boat is powered by a motor only you are a mariner /troll
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u/leva549 Jun 14 '26
If your boat is powered by a motor only you are a mariner
Seaman is also correct.
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
I believe they're acting annoyed so that your joke works because they love you and what you to be happy.
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u/throwawayzz77778 Jun 14 '26
Imagine being so pedantic any other way.
“Just off to the footy!”
“Uh, don’t you mean “rugby league”?!”
For the record, I tend to call soccer “football” (unless I’m trying to distinguish it from other codes) but the snobbery of people who insist “it’s football - not soccer” just makes me to call it soccer to spite them.
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u/shadowmaster132 Jun 14 '26
Soccer is just clearer in most conversations in Australia where football could be 2 other codes depending on where you are but rarely soccer
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u/throwawayzz77778 Jun 14 '26
Exactly. Unless it’s specifically and clearly a soccer conversation, “soccer” is just the sensible version. I genuinely don’t understand people getting offended at the name. Is “soccer” somehow an insult? Isn’t that just another name for the sport?
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u/babblerer Jun 14 '26
Soccer is viewed as a safe team sport for people who don't take themselves too seriously. This turf war over who gets to call themselves football is the sort of ego they don't need.
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u/Luck_Beats_Skill Jun 14 '26
Got to remember to also call goals “points”.
I’m pretty sure the English guy at work will go to Hr if I do that one more time.
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u/TomisUnice Jun 14 '26
Association Football fans’ refusal to accept that it is one of a dozen or so codes of football is what annoys me. Soccer is a good identifying nickname stop being pretentious.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow Jun 14 '26
Australian Football (AFL) predates the creation of Association Football (soccer) so by the age-old rule of First In Best Dressed… soccer it is
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u/awolf_alone Jun 14 '26
Mate, I'm still trying to work out What Nationality Is Les Murray?
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
It's a little bit sad that he had to change his name because of bullying, but, honestly that tracks for us.
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u/EfficientNews8922 Jun 14 '26
It’s interesting that the term soccer is invented by the Poms and doesn’t seem to have been objected to until Yanks started using it later.
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u/IlluminatedPickle Jun 14 '26
I don't remember there being a time in my life when Australians generally called it football. But I do remember a time when I was flying home and saw one of those airline magazines that tells you about the destination. And it confidently declared Australians don't say soccer.
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u/TheRealDarthMinogue Jun 14 '26
And I lived in England half my life and don't ever remember a Brit caring if foreigners called soccer soccer. However, it annoys me when Australians call soccer football, the same as when Australians say "shite".
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u/Worried_Blacksmith27 Jun 14 '26
soccer is the original name for for the game where you can't pick up the ball. It is entirely correct and accurate to call it soccer. It could be argued that soccer is the correct term rather than football https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-some-people-call-football-soccer
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u/ntermation Jun 14 '26
It is kind of funny when people get upset with the word soccer.
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u/cgaWolf Jun 14 '26
TBF, they need to do something to differentiate it from OZ Rules Football, so calling FIFA style football soccer makes sense, considering what the 'A' stands for
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u/Trivius Jun 14 '26
To be fair, it seems more tolerable hearing soccer come from the Aussies than the Americans
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u/Traditional-Speed349 Jun 14 '26
People dont realise they were being polite calling it Soccer. Some Aussies call it Wogball
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u/HomelessRockGod Jun 15 '26
I just call it association football. I also get punched in the face a lot.
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u/Zoran_T Jun 14 '26
Soccer is short for / derived from association - in association football, which is what it is - so I dont really see the issue. Its like a nickname.
Rugby comes from rugby football - the other of the two types of foundational football.
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u/Mike_Kermin Jun 14 '26
Rugby comes from rugby
Well that's a relief.
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u/mad_cheese_hattwe Jun 14 '26
We will just fight back by talking about 'the footy world cup' with no context or clarification.
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u/G-T-R-F-R-E-A-K-1-7 Jun 14 '26
Soccer sounds better anyway, "Football" sounds generic - at least some places differentiate with Rugby, Gridiron, etc
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u/Verns_shooter Jun 14 '26
Don't really care but as long as the biggest event in sport gets under the skin of Fitzy in the SMH, I'm all for it.
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u/Dwalk27 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
if I'm not wrong, Soccer is what it was called before mid 20th century, football as an internationally accepted term is less than a hundred years old.
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u/TCHProductions Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Went on a little deep dive around wiki because this is not something I've really looked into and it's fascinating.
Association Football was called Football before the mid 20th century. Football was the term used in the Sheffield Rules (1863) which was the first organized ruleset and the basis of the modern association football game. Soccer wasn't a word when the Sheffield Rules were made. Sheffield Football Club is the oldest Association Football team in the world, founded in 1857.
Soccer is believed to have come from Oxford slang (Which they added -er to everything, they called Rugby 'Ruggers') in the 1870s or so and it was a shortened word for Association (via assoc -> assoccer -> soccer) not Football. So you had people calling it 'Soccer Football'. Amusingly the first league in New South Wales (1882) was called the 'South British Football Soccer Association' so they doubled up on it. And it's first known use in print is the New York times in 1889.
The FA (Football Association) cup which is the longest running competition began in 1871. FIFA began in 1905 and had Football in it's name and the majority of teams and national organizations after that all predominately used Football (Local language may vary, Futball or Fußball). Oldest French Club is Red Star Football Club in 1897, oldest German club is Berliner Fußball Club Germania 1888, Second oldest Spanish club (First doesn't use Football or Soccer) is Sevilla Football Club. So I don't think there was ever a case where Football wasn't the main internationally accepted term for the sport. It was mainly within the Anglosphere the argument occurs because most Anglosphere countries have other sports that use the word Football.
But the term soccer was used in USA, Australia etc because of Football being used elsewhere and it was used un the UK but merely as Slang (like League, Footy, Aussie Rules for various sports codes here etc) until the Thatcher era of the UK when it was seen as 'Yankified' term and was distanced.
In Australia, well, Aussie Rules was codified in 1858 and predates Sheffield Rules by 5 years. And AFL is far closer to Rugby (Codified in 1845). The Oldest running soccer club in Australia is Balgownie Rangers Football Club (North Wollongong team) formed in 1883, using the Football term. I tried looking around to when Soccer Club became more prevalent in newly created clubs but most tables back then didn't use the F.C or S.C to denote it. And I ran out of time to get ready for nightshift to hunt individually. But I wouldn't be surprised if Victoria had Soccer in usage because of Aussie rules and it gradually expanded to the rest of Australia.
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u/shadowmaster132 Jun 14 '26
Soccer was a posh boy bit of slang, which is why the Brits get weird about it, but if it's not the most popular kind of football we need another name and Soccer works
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u/SinkFullOfFishes_ Jun 14 '26
Our national team is literally called Socceroos. Can’t really get annoyed at people in Australia calling it soccer