Talk:Football/Archive 11

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Popularity and globalisation

Could something more be said about the remarkable popularity and global appeal of football games, in particular soccer? The article currently doesn't account for the following distinctive features of football:

1) As a proportion of the world's population, the viewing figures for the (soccer) World Cup Final are staggering, dwarfing any other sporting event - Where does this global appeal come from? What features of the game generate such massive spectator interest, even in countries such as Japan and Thailand where there is little or no history of professional football?

2) Throughout Europe and South America, interest in soccer is far greater than for any other sport, including other types of football - Why is this?

3) In most English-speaking parts of the world, if soccer isn't the dominant sport then another code of football is either top or in the top tier of culturally important sports - Why is this? Does it provide a visual spectacle that other team sports don't perhaps?

4) Why are sports of British origin such as cricket and non-soccer football games so popular in former British colonies at the relative expense of soccer, whereas throughout the rest of the world soccer has been a far more successful export? Did other games arrive first and crowd out soccer?

Also,

Early history

Throughout the history of mankind, the urge to kick at stones and other such objects is thought to have led to many early activities involving kicking and/or running with a ball. Football-like games predate recorded history in all parts of the world, and thus the earliest forms of football are not known.

should be deleted - it's not only unsourced, but also (by definition) entirely speculative.

--Will129 13:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Will129

1) and 2) should be in the Soccer article not here 3) speculative and point of view 4) arrived first, the discussion of whether cricket is popular at the expense of soccer in India etc is quite out of the scope of this article.GordyB 13:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Gordy's right. FWIW I think point 4 is the key to the others. When soccer, cricket and rugby were invented in the late 19th century, the British Empire was the leading economic, military and cultural power. Victorian Britain was also a culture which highly valued recreation and physical exercise. It's a little like the spread of American movies and music in the 20th century. Soccer had practical appeal in that it could be played in a few hours (unlike cricket) and did not usually result in severe injuries (unlike rugby, especially the early forms). The injury issue was a big thing as most sports were strictly amateur or poorly paid and players could not afford to take time off work. India was an old British colony and the first recorded cricket game there was in 1721, which probably gave it head start of 150 years on soccer. Grant65 | Talk 19:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Victorian Britain valued sport more than other cultures because back then Britain was sufficiently developed that even working class people had leisure time whereas Poles, Italians, Mexicans etc did not.

Cricket is well adapted to the climate of India (ironically England has one of the least cricket-friendly climates), but soccer and rugby are not.GordyB 21:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Soccer is very popular in a lot of former British colonies, especially those in Africa.These were the countries colonized after the invention of association football in 1863.

Those colonies didn't receieve a lot of British settlers. Most Ghanians probably never saw a Briton. It is not surprising that they didn't adopt the British sports of cricket and rugby union. Rugby union was invented after soccer so its popularity in NZ etc has nothing to do with the date of colonization.GordyB 14:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, there were a lot of European settlers in southern and east Africa but those countries are at least as famous for rugby as soccer. Also, Rugby was invented before soccer, since it was codified at Rugby School in 1845. From memory there were already something like 75 rugby clubs in Britain when the RFU was founded in 1870, not to mention some in other countries. See Oldest football club.Grant65 | Talk 17:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Anglo settlers were more interested in cricket than rugby. Kenya and Zimbabwe don't have all that much of a rugby culture, the popularity of rugby in South Africa is because the Afrikaaners took it up.GordyB 21:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hybrid Codes

As far as I knew, International rules football was a hybrid code, just like Austus and Universal football. What makes it belong in the Irish and Australian varieties of football. it has been around for less than 50 years and has no leagues or clubs of any substance. --Spewmaster 01:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

It belongs there because it is a hybrid of Gaelic and Aussie rules, which are the main games in that "family". The reason why it has no clubs or leagues it that it exists only for games between the two codes. Its significance is had to dispute when you consider that this year it set a crowd record for international sport in Ireland, with 82,127 people at Croke Park. Grant65 | Talk 03:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

That appears to be a lot of people. Is there a way of objectively analyzing a sport's contribution to the economy by measuring ticket sales? Ignoring free admissions, and off-site peripheral economic activities, would it be fair to say that 82,127 admissions was roughly comparable to $500,000 US dollars? Would it be fair to say that that sum was matched by businesses on the periphery, such as hotels and motels, snackfood vendors and the like? In short, perhaps $1,000,000 US dollars? How much of the admissions was returned to the leagues and co-sponsors organizing it? 198.177.27.32 22:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Out of the scope of this article.GordyB 22:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Replace 1850s section

Would anyone object to the "Other developments in the 1850s" being replaced with a section on the rise of club football. I suggest this because it has become a poor section where general facts about the decade seem to collect. Meanwhile the rise of club and inter-club football is completly ignored. It was clubs which subsequently pushed for common codes, created the FA and gave rise to paying spectators and ultimatly professionalism. Documenting this specific part of the culture rather than a random decade would improve the article. josh (talk) 19:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the facts collected there are important, and would be totally opposed to them being deleted. They could possibly be better organised. The rise of clubs is covered pretty well by Oldest football club and the earliest clubs in each code are also mentioned in this article. Grant65 | Talk 15:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

soccer versus Association Football

I've changed 'soccer' to 'Association football' in quite a few places. Association football is the official name of the sport whereas soccer is just a name some people use. A lot of people especially in Britain dislike the word 'soccer' or at least, like me, feel that it is not an encyclopaedic word. I don't think that Americans would like 'gridiron' as a heading.GordyB 15:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It's beside the point whether Americans would like gridiron as a heading; the fact is, a lot of people, both those who know the game simply as "football" and those who know the game simply as "soccer", have never heard of "Association football". Soccer is both the official name and the common name in the USA and Canada, and many people in those and other countries would be bemused to be told that the word is "slang " or somesuch. Hence the formulation "football (soccer)". We need to bear in mind the terms that many of our readers know. 17:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the problem with an international Wiki, but i must agree with the point above, the article formation should remain 'Football (Soccer)'.--81.153.228.84 12:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is the Wiki page on Football all about Soccer? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.144.62.37 (talk • contribs) January 17, 2007.

Not much of the article is about soccer. Grant65 | Talk 06:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Because Football IS Soccer. Soccer is just a different name. You hit the ball with your sock/foot/shoe in soccer don't you? Go to England and go watch a football game. I personally despise the sport, I'm not complaining about it's existance am I? (No offence intended) --Michael Betts 17:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Soccer is not the name of the sport. The sport is called 'Association football' by any UK encyclopaedia or similar work and that is its official name. If as Grant says this name is not well known in some countries then I will accept that and let the matter drop.GordyB 18:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

What nonsense are some of you speaking on here? seriously? soccer is NOT football. The sport is founded and created as FOOTBALL. soccer is what the americans and canadians call it in ignorance. you notice all the FOOTBALL clubs all have FC in their names? Manchester United FC,FC Internazionale,Real Madrid CF etc.

Also note that FIFA contains no 's'.Recently a very stupid person has told me the F in FIFA stands for federation. Very good sunshine what do you think the other F stands for? FOOTBALL FIFA is the world governing body and they never use the s word. Look at Europe as well. UEFA not UESA. Infact all the other federations in the world use football barring 2.

It really doesn't matter if an Englishman came up with the word 'soccer' he didn't invent the sport and thus he cannot change the name of it. Worse yet no one in England or the UK uses it anyway. So please do not tell me any rubbish about 'soccer' is football. If you are an american or canadian frolicking in the ignorance and calling it soccer then that is very sad but the sport is called football.

No one calls hockey,curling,basketball or any of those lesser sports any other name. So show respect to the world's greatest sport and call it by its ONLY and PROPER name of FOOTBALL.

vNistelrooy9 21:05, 18 January 2007

It is not true that nobody in the UK uses the word 'soccer'. I do so from time to time, I just don't think it an encyclopaedic word. Also in the North of England, 'FC' are often rugby league clubs e.g. Hull FC whereas the local soccer team are Hull City A.F.C.. A lot of Northern clubs are 'AFC' to avoid confusion with rugby which was called 'football' by Victorians. The official name of the sport is 'Association football', FIFA means internation federation of association football.GordyB 07:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You are also wrong about 'hockey', what we in England call 'hockey' is 'field hockey' in lots of other countries to avoid confusion with 'ice hockey'.07:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Mr van Nistelrooy - if I'm not mistaken, FIFA is an acronym of a French name, and this is actually the English wikipedia. Now even if Canadians and Americans are as ignorant as you claim, the mere fact that they continue to use the term soccer is quite relevant because of the sway they have in the English speaking world, remembering that this is an English language wikipedia. Gordy is correct that that the official name of the sport in England was always Association Football. Finally, I give you this quote from the Macquarie dictionary (Australian usage):

football

  /'footbawl/.
  noun
      1. any game in which the kicking of a ball has a large part, as Australian Rules, Rugby Union, Rugby League,
  soccer, American football, etc.
      2. Chiefly WA, SA, Victoria and Tasmania Australian Rules football.
      3. Qld, NSW
            a. Rugby League.
            b. either Rugby League or Rugby Union.
      4. Chiefly British soccer.
      5. the ball used in any of these games.
      6. Colloquial an amphetamine pill.
  Also, Colloquial, footy.
  Usage: While it is still the case that in general use soccer is the preferred term in Australia for what most of
the   world calls football, the fact that the peak body in Australia has officially adopted the term football for 
this   sport will undoubtedly cause a shift in usage.

In short, rather than discuss your own personal beliefs and preferences, you have to discuss what is actually used right across the English speaking world, remembering that this is the English language wikipedia. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 07:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Soccer I think barely falls under the football category but does for one tiny reason. Goalkeepers keep the ball on foot for some point in time. Obviously it is certainly not a commen name for it outside of Britain in the English speaking world, and even in England, it is only in the past 50 years that football has come to mean exclusively soccer upon most mentions of the word. [1] Never had much contact eh? --Nomoreofthat 09:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Nomore, what is the reason for the reference to my talk page? Just curious, cheers Grant | Talk 05:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

vNistelrooy9, as the "very stupid person" who pointed out to you that the first F of FIFA stands for federation, I would like to remind you that I only did this because you said "it's not sifa". Since you were so keen to call North Americans ignorant, I thought you should bother to get it right yourself. I also pointed out to you that FIFA is in French, and so not relevant to the English language, but you seem to have ignored that. Do you think we shoudl call swimming "natation" becaus there is no S in FINA?

The fact is that many English speakers in different parts of the world don't jsut call it "football". If you read the article, you will learn that association football was never the only game that used the name football. That means that other names need to be used. Association football is the most formal name, soccer is another. It is not "incorrect", it is simply another name. While many people may be ignorant, the name "soccer" is used even by those who seem to know more than you, and in some places is not the slang word it is in England (where I have seen it in newspaper headlines), but used in official names.

Finally, please stop and look at what you are doing to the article. You are not only removing uses of "soccer" in the text and replacing it with the ambiguous "football" rather than "association football" which would be a reasonable change, you are also blindly undoing other people's improvements to the article which have nothign to do with this issue, and worst of all, removing "soccer" from link targets that don't even show up in the text, meaning that links are broken, wrecking the article. JPD (talk) 10:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

yea yea yea you fucking dunce. since the first F in FIFA doesnt stand for football what does the second one stand for? you fucking ignorant pig shit. and dont try that bullshit about the word 'soccer' came from England. so what? do they or anyone else bar the ignorant canada and us use it? NO. so shut the fuck up and don't bring that horse shit arguement to me. the sport is FOOTBALL so take your rinky dink arguements and shove it you cunt. Whether association football or football its still NOT soccer so please do not bring that garbage to me or to anyone else.

whoever brought up the HULL AFC great its still not soccer and that word is still not acceptable. Football International Federation Association bitch. the word 'soccer' is not used by intelligent people to describe the sport but clearly some of you here are not.

vNistelrooy9

I would have thought that someone who was calling two whole countries ignorant would bother to get their facts straight and actually read what other people have written. You're still getting FIFA wrong, haven't answered my question about FINA, and are ignoring the fact that some English people and many Australians, New Zealanders and who knows who else do use the word "soccer". You haven't yet given one reason why "that word is not acceptable", even though others have managed to give a reasonable argument. Saying that intelligent people don't use it just displays your own ignorance, as does the fact that you haven't discussed this in a civil way, and still haven't learnt how to make your changes to the article without destroying it. JPD (talk) 12:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm an Aussie soccer fan. Virtually all Aussies (outside of soccer administrators, some journalists and Euro expats) call it soccer. The same goes for New Zealand. South Africans usually call it soccer, but also call it football. Ireland is split between people calling soccer "football" and those that call Gaelic football "football". It is almost certain that a majority of people who speak English as a first language say "soccer", especially since there are 300 million people in the USA, as opposed to 60 million in the UK.

And Federation International de Football Association means "International Federation of Association Football", not "International Football Federation" Grant | Talk 14:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Obviously only unintelligent people can read French.GordyB 15:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What's the problem with football (soccer)? Clear and unambiguous, everyone knows what it means (unlike association football), and follow a general rule of first use being the unambiguous name for the code and all further uses can be simply "football" as we should all by then know what the article's about? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dibo (talk • contribs) 22:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Oh, and GordyB - you just called about 175 million people unintelligent! :P Dibo ^{T | C} 22:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I did not but it seems that it is not only Americans who have trouble with irony.GordyB 16:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Tu n'as pas vu mon ":P", c'est ça? :D Dibo ^{T | C} 22:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I did but some people use smilies for very odd things.GordyB 22:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. Noone calls soccer football except for the pommies. Why is anyone even bothering with this troll? The person is ignorant and uses bad language. Very unwikipedian if you ask me. But than, pommies can be an ignorant bunch. I have watched a 60's Cheshire rugby movie where the term soccer is used continually and football is applied to rugby. How times have chnged in England, that they now think that soccer and only soccer is football, hmmm. Oh well, think the page is 90%, and gets a mark of very good/high distinction the way that it is. --Ehinger222 07:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring the rant, is there some sort of consensus here? Dibo ^{T | C} 10:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That is not very wikipedian language, Dibo. I had a factually based comment to contribute. Poor form! --Ehinger222 14:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't lump the rest of my country in with him. Sorry he said the things he did (though I'm fairly sure he's not) but thats no reason to repeat the crime in reverse now, is it? Most of the 'pommies' I know (probably rather more than you) are actually very intelligent, friendly, non-ignorant people, as I'm sure you are too. As an Englishman living in England reading the English press etc etc, I can see why he is vehemently (though not coherently) arguing for the term football to be applied exclusively to what I shall call, for clarity's sake, soccer. After all, 'Football' is the term that we English see applied to soccer 99.9% of the time, and being the patriotic lot (who like to believe we invented it, despite being unable to prove it), we don't like it when someone else tells us we're playing something called soccer. And yes, 'soccer' does get used occasionally in England, even in citeable sources, but it's few and far between. Now, I'm only trying to explain his apparently irrational argument, I personally think Wikipedia's handling of the confusion is quite good, seeing as how globally there are so many variations of the ball-to-foot game which all get called 'football' locally. So, in a nutshell, he's wrong. But I can hear what he's saying. Tbone762 01:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, WHAT'S THE OFFICIAL NAME OF THIS SPORT? it's also called "soccer" around the world too, but that doesn't change its official name, which is used for international occasions.

I've checked other wikipedia that are based on other languages. "Fußball" in German, "Football" in French, "Calcio" in Italian, "Futebol" in Portuguese, "Football" in Spanish. Which of these are even related to the term "soccer"? It's pretty clear that they're from the term "Football". Let's stop this fatuous argument over something obvious. BE OFFICIAL.davidmj926 09:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use common names not official names. Association football is the official name worldwide. "Football" is the common name of Association football in most countries. Soccer is the common and/or official name of the game in several countries. Sometimes when we name articles, we have to combine two common names in order to remove ambiguiity and address national differences, hence football (soccer). Grant | Talk 17:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Calcio means 'kick', it is not derived from football. What the name of the sport is in foreign languages is not the point, this is English wiki not Spanish wiki but in any case you are wrong again, there are quite a few languages that use a word derived from "soccer" e.g. Japanese. In additon to which the official name of the sport is "Association football" only American football is actually called "football".GordyB 13:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

hmm, thanks for your point GordyB. But only America football is actually called "football"? then what about AFC and OFC? They do not have "association" in their names, just "football". So I think tha "association football" is called "football" around the world too, not only American one.davidmj926 07:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Not every football confederation has "association" in its title but FIFA are the world body and they say that the sport is called "association football". Back in Victorian times football just meant any one of several games, which is why a lot of English soccer teams are AFC (association football club) rather than FC and a lot of rugby clubs are FC rather than RFC, RUFC, RLFC etc. Round the word football usually means soccer, but in the English-speaking world this is not the case; it's not just the USA which is the deviant one.GordyB 13:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wedderburn

I have added the original latin and the original english translation of the whole Wedderburn quotation to the page on British public schools. I have altered the sentence on the main football page because the original latin states "strike it here" (huc percute) and "strike again" (repercute). That is to say that the word "pass" is not used explicitly. (one might want the ball to be hit here for other reasons than the modern concept of passing the ball during play). It should also be noted that Carew's account of Cornish Hurling categorically described passing the ball from player to player (dealing) and this predates Wedderburn.

The 1602 Carew quote also refers to goalkeeping, which again predates Wedderburn.

This article's existence...

...is retarded. There should only be a list of links to the various types of football, i.e. 'The term "football" may refer to: ...' with a list of links to the various codes following. All the history and stuff for each code can be (and already is!) discussed on its respective article page. Football is a word whose precise meaning depends on where you are geographically when you say it. A truly pointless page. Surely others agrees with me on this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.53.46.141 (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

This has been discussed before. There's no point making this into a disambig page without explaining what the different forms of football are otherwise people will never find what they are looking for. Also the various sports have a common origin which would need to be discussed somewhere.GordyB 21:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear anonymous - this is how this article starts:

Football is the name given to a number of different, but related, team sports. The most popular of these world-wide is association football (also known as soccer). The English word "football" is also applied to American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby union and rugby league), and related games. Each of these codes (specific sets of rules) is to a greater or lesser extent referred to as "football" and sometimes "footy" by its followers.

As you can see, not only is the info encyclopaedic, but it achieves precisely what you are after in any event - two birds with the one stone! And as Gordyb has already said (many times) it all needs to be brought together under the one umbrella - what better place than the generic concept, of, "football"! πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 07:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I kind of like the fact that under football it includes other sports than American football; after all, isn't that the fun of going to an encyclopedia, to learn other uses for what you thought of as a common word or idea? Gtadoc 22:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Lol. Yeah like looking up the word Mother and suddenly finding out that other people have them too. Jooler 12:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Gaelic Football

Sections 2.2.10 and 3.1 ought to be ammended. Firstly, Ireland ought to be included in those countries listed whereby football (often) refers to another sport other than Association Football (Soccer). In rural areas, the term Football soley refers to Gaelic Football and the Irish media use a convention whereby Association Football is referred to as 'Soccer' and Gaelic Football as just that.

The origins of Gaelic Football predate the 19th Century as the post implies. This addition ought to be made:

The first mention of football in Ireland is found in 1308, where John McCrocan, a spectator at a football game at Newcastle, County Dublin was charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard.

The Statute of Galway of 1527 allowed the playing of "foot balle" and archery but banned "'hokie' [sic] — the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves" as well as other sports. However even "foot-ball" was banned by the severe Sunday Observance Act of 1695, which imposed a fine of one shilling (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught playing sports. It proved difficult, if not impossible for the authorities to enforce the Act and the earliest recorded inter-county match in Ireland was one between Louth and Meath, at Slane, in 1712.

The first references to the nature of play was in 1670: the ball may be held and struck either hand or foot. Often referred to as peil (see modern Peil Gaelach).

Football was thought to have been introduced into Ireland by the Normans in the 12-13th centuries and was predominantly played in the south and east of the country. There were no references to Football in the Brehon Laws (Fénechas).

Caid refers not to a specific code of football but the equipment used i.e. the ball. The Field Game as it was played in Kerry was the principal basis for that code of football played by the Limerick club, Commercials, upon which Maurice Davin is thought to have drawn inspiration. It was a pitch-based, field game composed of two opposing teams that took turns defending a 'goal', which comprised the boughs of two stripped trees tied to one another in the characteristic 'H'. Different scores were indicated depending upon whether the ball was driven above or below the bar.

Gaelic Football is similar to Australian-Rules Football, although their common origin is disputed. What is not in dispute, however, is that the Irish of Victoria played football (noted in 1843). Also, most Irish convicts at that time were either Rebels (or their descendents) from the 1798 Rebellion and thus predominantly from the south-east of Ireland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martan32 (talk • contribs) 13:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)