I have an article going out in June about a European club. No big revelations, it focuses on their business/technology strategy. On this occasion I haven't written it, one of our professional journalists has. It's for WW distribution. Today I have had to have the football vs soccer argument.

The journo wrote soccer throughout. I corrected all to either football or "sports teams." Annoyed that I have the audacity to edit his professional journalist's piece our editor-in-chief wrote to me with:

"I don’t know why we “simply cannot” say soccer. What’s your rationale for that? Every American publication I have looked up references European football as “soccer,” including the New York Times. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/spor ... sliga.html

Stunning ignorance in my book.

I don’t get what the problem is tbh
The word soccer is from “Association Football”

I can’t imagine the 14 year old me waking up on a Saturday morning, watching Tim & Helen on “Football AM” then Jeff & co on “Football Saturday” before having a few games of “Sensible World of Football” on the Amiga

It was referred to as soccer in the UK long before America ever took it on. Who cares?

not a UK team

Don’t a number of MLS clubs have FC in their name?

https://www.topendsports.com/sport/socc ... t-name.htm

Impressively someone's taken the time to see what most countries call it

It doesn't bother me either way tbh, if I'm chatting with a yank, I'll call it soccer just to avoid confusion.

It's called hoofball around these parts

Not bothered what Americans call it. If its ‘soccer’ then that’s fair enough.

For American Football, Baseball and other American sports, I suppose the rest of the world call it ‘what else is on?’

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Sat May 14, 2022 5:44 pm

Don’t a number of MLS clubs have FC in their name?

Yes, but I dont think the F stands for football

You know what? It just doesn't matter.

Fair play, stand your ground.

If you can't come to an agreement, then offer to settle it in the parking lot, I mean car park.

I hope you used some COLORful language and gave no FAVOR when you told them that no matter what they think, about anything, at all, in the whole entire history of anything, they are highly likely to be wrong. This being no exception.

We should call American football Amsooll or something just to annoy them.
The word soccer makes no sense and it doesn’t matter if the world was invented in the UK or not, at least we realised it makes no sense and dropped it. I don’t get the argument “well it comes from association so it is fine”. Where is the e and r in association? It is like calling Rugby football Uger. Or American football Mercer. Soccer is a stupid made up word used by fools.

Literally every single word ever written or spoken is a made up word. Words don't exist in some metaphysical plane existing prior to human cognition, ripe and ready to be plucked for use by human beings at their whim. If someone says "soccer" their meaning is clear. To object to its use to describe or refer to what we call football is to be a self-appointed gatekeeper of whom football 'belongs' to. Don't behave like that, it's elitist. I don't like it when elitism is done to me; we shouldn't do it to others.

Football - generic term covering lots of different sports
But used by most of those sports or the shorter footy.

Soccer - specific derived from "Association Football" and first used by the British - but for some time wrongly attributed to the Americans and their ruining our game.

Also in mid 19th century there were lots of different football games played in UK so when they codified them and gave different rules "asSOCiation football" nicknamed Soccer so as people knew which football they were talking about.

It's football. Allover the world. Only north America call it soccer. So stand up against America wanting to change the name.

My point being missed is that he used New York Times’ usage of the word “Soccer” that, by definition, is for a US domestic audience, as justification to use the word for an article that will be given world-wide distribution. So that while the US would recognize soccer, the rest of the world would better recognize “football,” and in particular by the club that is the subject of the story.

It’s not so much the word that bugged me, it’s the “we’re ok with it, so the rest of the globe must be too”