by Tim Carter

Created on: July 10, 2008

Americans have referred to football as soccer in order to differentiate it from their own national sport, American Football. However, there does seem to be a lack of respect for the origins of the sport, Football and the fact that it was invented well before American Football.Nowhere else in the world is football referred to as soccer.It appears that American marketeers preffered to draw attention to the sport in America by phrasing soccer as just a kick in the grass.This may have been a useful ploy when football first made any kind of impact in American,but now it recieves more widespreads attenton it requires the correct phraseology.

National pride of Americans in their main sports dictates that American baseball teams compete for the world series, football is termed American Football and what is known as football everywhere else is lightly brushed off as soccer. The American national soccer/football team has improved noticeably over the years and there is massive interest in the sport at grass roots level,but in order for the American public at large to take it more seriously and raise its profile to the next level it is about time it was referred to its' correct name,football or if you wanted to be particular, Association Football to give it its' full title.I would be curious to know what successful American footballers based in England term the sport as.

In England, American Football is referred to as American Football not as American Soccer.I believe the American sporting public would be very annoyed if that change was made and would be adamant that it was correctly termed.The American public is sophisticated enough to have football presented to them as an alternative to American football.It should be remembered that in Ireland there is Gaelic Rules football and in Australia there is Australian Rules football.Football is still referred to as football in those two countries not as soccer.Indeed in Australia,as in America,their version of football is more popular than normal football but they do feel the need to invent the word soccer.

Both sports are fantastic to watch and play and America should embrace the origins of the term football and take pride in how well their national mens and womens teams have performed.It would be great to have some correspondence from American readers as to whether they would feel comfortable calling it football or why they would still like to call it soccer.

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