How a Donald Trump commentary during the FIFA Club World Cup can ensure that US can finally call ‘football’

It is the world’s most popular sport and yet there is still discussion about how it should be called.

Is it football or football?

President Donald Trump of the United States of America waded the subject in the FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey last Sunday. He joked that he could take an executive order to bring the United States into line with a large part of the rest of the world and to ensure that Americans called it from now on to football.

«I think I could do that,» he said with a smile during an interview with host Omroep Dazn.

It was a light -hearted comment, but at a time when the US plays an increasingly important role in football, the question is why Americans continue to call it a different name than that with which it is best known is again raised.

«They call it football, we call it football. I’m not sure if that change can be made very easily,» Trump said.

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Football continues to grow in the US and that also applies to the influence on sport. Together with FIFA Men’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico, it is the third year in a row next year that it is organizing a big tournament after the 2024 Copa America and this summer club World Cup.

Other factors more often keep football in American consciousness – and perhaps they will make «football» more commonplace in a tough sports landscape.

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Etymology of ‘football’

Although «football» is associated with the US on a large scale, it is often accepted that the word was actually conceived in Britain, perhaps already in the 1880s.

The exact date on which it was first used is not known, but it is believed that «football» is derived from «Association Football», which was the first official name of the sport.

The charity heritage says that the nickname may have been used for the first time by students from the iconic Harrow school to ‘distinguish the new association game from their older pursuit, known as’ Footer ‘.’

Numerous versions of football started to flourish, often dealing with a ball more than kicking. An example dates from the 1600s and still plays in England today is Royal Shrovetide. Rugby is another example.

The English football club was founded in 1863 and set up codified rules for Associated Football to distinguish it from other versions that are played elsewhere in Britain and from there football as we know, was born.

Dr. Stefan Szymanski, a professor in sports management at the University of Michigan, wrote the book «It’s Football, Not Soccer (and Vice Versa)» and investigated the origin of the name. In a lecture at the American University of Beirut in 2019, he said that football was «very clearly a word of English/British descent».

«And keep in mind that the name ‘Association Football’ does not really appear until the 1870s,» he said, «so it seems very early in the history of the game and the word ‘football’ has always been used since it was thought of at the end of the 19th century.»

«Football» is not a commonly used term in Britain nowadays, but that has not always been the case.

It was the title of a popular TV show on Saturday morning, «Soccer Am», who ran from 1994 to 2023 on the guest group of the Premier League Sky Sports.

England Great and 1966 World Cup winner Bobby Charlton had been running popular schools for decades, entitled ‘Bobby Charlton’s Soccer School’. And Matt Busby – The iconic manager of Manchester United who won the 1968 European Cup – entitled His Autobiography, which was published in 1974: «Soccer at the top, My Life in Football.» That book title suggests that the terms «football» and «football» were interchangeable in British culture at that time.

‘Football’ all over the world

Szymanski suggested the problem that some people do not have the floor at all with «football». But rather that it is used specifically in America.

«It is when Americans use this word that we get the dials of need and horror, and one of the most popular thoughts that people throw in here is that American football is not really football,» he said in his lecture.

He argued that, given the overwhelming popularity of the NFL in the US, it is completely logical to distinguish between football and his own version of football.

The use of the word «football» is a little more confused in other countries.

Australia, which has its own Australian rules football, together with both rugby codes, usually uses the term and the national men’s team is known as the Socceroos. However, it is a football federation, is called Football Australia.

It is a similar situation in Ireland, where Gaelic Football is popular. The term «football» is used, but the national football team is still controlled by a body called the Football Association of Ireland.

Canada, just like the US, simply calls football that it clearly distinguishes from the NFL and the Canadian football competition.