Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / November 2003

Well,yes it is, but only on the rare occasions when it's necessary to
differentiate the world game from other codes; one such occasion would
be when doing a web search and wanting to filter out sites relating to
Rugby, Australian Rules or American Football.  I think you'll find
that nine-tenths of the world's population, when they talk about
'football' (or indeed futbol or fussball) are talking about the
round-ball game.  The obvious exception is where there's a local
nationally-popular football code.

Here's some stats: this is based on searching Google for the word
'football' in the 5 countries you looked at Bill, plus the US.  I
clicked the 'pages from ...' option for the first 5 - significantly
this option isn't available in US Google.  I then looked at which code
is refered to on the first ten hits:-

Canada - gridiron - 10
UK - soccer 9, rugby - 1 (not unconnected with a certain event in
Australia tomorrow!)
Australia - multi-code site 1, Aussie Rules 9
New Zealand - soccer 4, rugby 6 (no surprises there)
Germany - (search 'football') gridiron 3, soccer 7
Germany - (search 'fussball') soccer 10
US - gridiron 5, soccer 5 (although the absence of a 'search US sites'
option makes this slightly unfair)

DC Cat, passes back and runs into space... ;-)

I didn't mean to imply taht the term "soccer" isn't used in other
English-speaking countries - the word actually derives from England.
However, most people outside the US understand football to mean this sport.

Soccer may be used to differentiate it from other forms of football,
Gaelic football, rugby (both rugby league and rugby union), Australian
rules and, of course, American football - all of which are characterised
to a greater or lesser degree by the use of the hands rather than the
feet to propel or control the ball.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan