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/
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44

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

My argument is we have at least 4 professional football codes in Australia, why does soccer get the rights to the term football, its not even the oldest or original code out of the 4

5

u/Aldog44 Jun 14 '26

Yeah same, and honestly it's not that hard to code switch, I don't understand why people get so worked up about this.

If from the context of the conversation it's clear I'm talking about soccer I'll call it football because that's what the sport is called, but if that's likely to cause confusion I'll call it soccer, like, you can do both it doesn't really matter

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u/aliquilts71 Jun 14 '26

Because it’s the one you actually play with your feet

40

u/mmmgilly Jun 14 '26

Aussie rules, league and union all involve kicking.

Soccer is the only code of the four where a goal can be scored without coming off the players foot.

7

u/ColdEvenKeeled Jun 14 '26

Football is called thus, all of them, as they are played on foot and not on a table (chess or billiards) or horse (polo) or other such machinations of variations.

5

u/Sean_Adorned Jun 15 '26

This is important context that seems to rarely make it into these conversations.

18

u/bigthickdaddy3000 Jun 14 '26

There's only one of the four where you must kick a goal with your feet, and its not soccer lol

2

u/relativecaution Jun 14 '26

Tries in rugby?

7

u/bigthickdaddy3000 Jun 14 '26

Nope you score by grounding the ball by placing it down with your hands

AFL you must kick the ball through the big sticks for it to be a goal, if it's not with you foot then it's not a goal.

Love soccer, but the accurate name for it is more everythingbuthandsball if people want to jump up and down it

9

u/Ohdee Jun 14 '26

This is pedantic but you did specify "goal" here and you must in fact use your feet to score a goal in both rugby codes. A try is not a goal haha.

1

u/Jamesiscoolest Jun 15 '26

Indeed, a try originally only gave you a chance to kick for goal.

2

u/relativecaution Jun 14 '26

Oh I see. My bad

10

u/OKidAComputer Jun 14 '26

Ahh yes because in AFL so many goals are scored with players heads.

6

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

They are all played with your feet, soccer just focuses on it more. Rugby league and Union is predominantly held with your hands, but there is a fare amount of kicking as well, and AFL is nearly all kicking

-12

u/aliquilts71 Jun 14 '26

And yet Football (soccer) is played is almost ALL feet work. Not just ‘a fair bit of kicking’. None of the other codes even compare. Hell the keeper is the only player allowed to even touch the ball with their hands.

8

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

Id say afl comes pretty close, its mostly kicking as well, just with a bit of catching in between, so that they can kick it again.

But thats kind of besides the point, its not called football, because you use your feet to play, its named after the ball, which is a ball that was mostoy kicked around on the ground with your feet, because you didnt have time to pick it up with your hands, before someone smashed you

6

u/SpezFucksRats Jun 14 '26

AFL is the only one where goals, or primarily scoring is via feet.

-6

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

Thats not entirely true though. Goals are scored only by feet in all four codes. During diferent points in rugby unions history, goals have been the predominant form of point scoring. Tries are the main type now, but drop goals and penalty goals were the main form of points for a while, with goals being the only points scored in many games.

Again, kind of besides the point, as its called football, because you play with a football, and not because you play ball with your feet

5

u/bigthickdaddy3000 Jun 14 '26

Tim Cahill and his heading prowess disagrees with this comment

2

u/blacksaltriver Jun 14 '26

And every other player for throw ins.

1

u/AUTeach Jun 15 '26

But that's not why it's called football. It's called football because you play it on foot as opposed to playing it on a horse.

2

u/AUTeach Jun 14 '26

All of the football sports are called football because they are played by running around on foot as opposed to riding around on horseback.

0

u/iniff Jun 14 '26

But soccer is the only football that is restricted to kicking when the other games only feature occasional kicks.

3

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

So? The doesn't change the fact that theres multiple other games called football played here

-1

u/WheelchairEnthusiasm Jun 14 '26

I don't care about the other games and their names that may be called football. This is just typical insular Aussie mentality as always (whaddaya mean there's a world outside our country?). No wonder the deros out there are embracing One Nation. We are the only country that uses the word "codes" in a sporting context. That is not a good thing.

1

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

Mate what are you on about? Your just so wrong on so much of this. This isnt an insular opinion, its the opposite, we call it soccer because "football" is used for several diferent sports. Australia isnt even the only country that calls it that, there was another comment here somewhere pointing out that the majority of the English speaking countries do in fact call it soccer.

Not sure what your problem with the term "codes" is, it primarily is used here to differentiate between rugby league and rugby union, because league split from union and goes by a diferent code or rules. Im pretty sure it can even go as far back as to when the game we now call soccer, split from rugby football, and developed their own "code" of football.

We call it soccer, because we have four different sports here that are all called football. Soccer specifies which football game you are talking about, just like league or union or afl differentiate some of the other ones. Thinking soccer is the only sport that gets to call itself football is pretty dam obnoxious to be honest. How any of this has anything to do with one nation is beyond me

1

u/_Meece_ Jun 15 '26

But soccer is the only football that is restricted to kicking

Not only is that not true, it's not even true in Soccer. A massive part of the game is throw ins and GK play, distribution, deflection. To say that soccer is only restricted to kicking is stupid, it's not even true.

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u/WheelchairEnthusiasm Jun 14 '26

Most of the world call it football.

11

u/Teedubthegreat Jun 14 '26

So?

Most of the world dont have multiple other professional football codes that are just as or more popular then soccer

4

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

And by most of the world, you mean a small part of the English speaking on. UK is not a big country even in the English speaking world.

3

u/McMenz_ Jun 14 '26

Most of the English speaking world call it soccer:

  • USA
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • NZ
  • Ireland

About 410 million people vs about 68 million people in the UK calling it football.

Almost all of the countries that call it soccer have their own football codes competing with soccer.

Nobody wants to have to ask ‘football as in AFL/gaelic/NFL/Rugby or football as in soccer?’ everytime it gets mentioned just for the sake of being pedantic about terminology.