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Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football (known as soccer in North America and Oceania); gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century. The expansion and cultural influence of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside the directly controlled Empire.

Use of the word “football”

The word football, when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word “football” is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region (which is association football in most countries). So, effectively, what the word “football” means usually depends on where one says it. Heading from The Sportsman (London) front page of 25 November 1910, illustrating the continued use of the word “football” to encompass both association football and rugby In each of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, one football code is known solely as “football”, while the others generally require a qualifier.

In New Zealand, “football” historically referred to rugby union, but more recently may be used unqualified to refer to association football. The sport meant by the word “football” in Australia is either Australian rules football or rugby league, depending on local popularity (which largely conforms to the Barassi Line). In francophone Quebec, where Canadian football is more popular, the Canadian code is known as le football while American football is known as le football américain and association football is known as le soccer. Of the 45 national FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, most currently use Football in their organisations’ official names; the FIFA affiliates in Canada and the United States use Soccer in their names. A few FIFA affiliates have recently “normalised” to using “Football”.

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