Talk:Association football
Add topicLatest comment: 1 month ago by Everythingmk in topic Wiki Education assignment: Composition II
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I've never heard of this sport being called association football.
The term association football is the original name for the sport. FIFA's name in English is International Association Football Federation. However, its usage has diminished in recent years, with different cultures developing their own word(s) for the sport. Even the word soccer derives from the
"soc" in association. Why not just football?
This is because there are several sports that are known as football in different countries. For example, in the United States, American football is primarily referred to as football, while the same is true of Gaelic football in Ireland, Canadian football in Canada, rugby union in New Zealand, and rugby league or Australian rules football in Australia. The title association football avoids any ambiguity over which code of football is being referred to, and also removes the potential for accusations of bias towards any particular code. Meanwhile, the Football page is a "broad-concept article", providing a general overview of all of the sports named football. Why not soccer then?
In the United Kingdom, the usage of the term soccer, a term which originated in South East England (before being popularised in the United States), is sometimes viewed as being derogatory towards the sport, or an example of American culture being forced onto the rest of the world. Therefore, although the word soccer would be an unambiguous title for this article, there would be discontent from a large number of people who object to their word for the sport being ignored. Others point to soccer being the most widely used name for the sport in English-speaking nations – however the statistics for this are not readily available or are confusing (e.g. India is the largest country with English as an official language and refers to the game as football, but English is not the primary language for most Indians) and others where countries change their official name for the sport (as Australia have done by now referring to the sport as football, renaming Soccer Australia to Football Federation Australia and changing the local associations' names to reflect this, whilst the general populace still refers to the game as soccer). What about "Football (soccer)" or "Soccer (football)"?
On Wikipedia, the placing of a word in parentheses in the title of an article is used as a method of disambiguation, with the parenthesized word usually being a set of which the article's subject is a part. Therefore, using either of these titles implies that football is a form of soccer or vice versa, which is not the case. Using "Association football" as the title of this article is permissible under Wikipedia's practice of using natural disambiguation in article titles. |
 | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
 | Association football is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed. | ||||||||||||||||||
 | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 20, 2006. | ||||||||||||||||||
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 | This  level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 | This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review prior discussions if you are considering renomination.
Discussions Please see the FAQ above and the related naming subpage detailing the extensive move discussions. All discussions regarding the article title should be posted there. Older discussions
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Proposal to move the name to Football
[edit]The term "Association football" is outright way too formal and should be moved to the more common term "Football (not to be confused with American football)" so it should likely be moved. ~2026-28450-01 (talk) 04:36, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
- No. There are far more codes of football than just soccer and American football. HiLo48 (talk) 04:39, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
- And all of those have specialised terms. Meanwhile football as such is the most played sport worldwide and perfectly understood by the term football, yet many people outside of, mostly the US, find terms like soccer or association football strange. So, to me the current solution screams to me as very US-centric, not neutral and not depicting the defacto majority understanding. Heineeee (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
- I agree with this suggestion. Football is the most popular name for the game and I used by the majority of the English speaking world. SteadyJames (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
- @HiLo48 @Heineeee @SteadyJames Would this page moved to "Football" with a hatnote to wherever the current Football page is moved and Football (disambiguation) make sense? UltrasonicMadness (talk) 23:20, 30 July 2026 (UTC)
- And all of those have specialised terms. Meanwhile football as such is the most played sport worldwide and perfectly understood by the term football, yet many people outside of, mostly the US, find terms like soccer or association football strange. So, to me the current solution screams to me as very US-centric, not neutral and not depicting the defacto majority understanding. Heineeee (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2026 (UTC)
- Agree. 50–270 million players The world's game. Every country plays it.
- That is reason enough to treat it as default. Not even baseball article is called American Baseball, despite there being many baseballs. ~2026-38367-49 (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
- There are NOT many baseballs! HiLo48 (talk) 10:03, 31 July 2026 (UTC)
- There are several baseballs. Even Wikipedia itself has different pages to differentiate. SteadyJames (talk) 06:50, 28 August 2026 (UTC)
- There are NOT many baseballs! HiLo48 (talk) 10:03, 31 July 2026 (UTC)
Not a contact sport
[edit]It says it's a contact sport when it's not ~2026-37890-98 (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
- So why do players so often end up writhing around on the ground? HiLo48 (talk) 08:00, 4 August 2026 (UTC)
- Because they haven't been touched. Seasider53 (talk) 09:35, 4 August 2026 (UTC)
- Anecdotally, football is usually described as a contact sport at least in a European context. The Laws of the Game published by IFAB don't make direct reference to football as a contact sport, but they do make it clear that contact with an opponent is only an offense when it's "careless, reckless or using excessive force". ~2026-44063-58 (talk) 04:08, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
- Its a contact sport by the definition of contact sports, to be differentiated from "full contact" (generally applicable only to martial arts) and "non contact" which are typically solo sports, often evolved from more casual past-times or sporting pursuits rather than necessary athletic. Koncorde (talk) 23:03, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
"Youth association football" listed at Redirects for discussion
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The redirect Youth association football has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 July 22 § Youth association football until a consensus is reached. Jay 05:59, 30 July 2026 (UTC)
Wiki Education assignment: Composition II
[edit]
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation–supported course assignment, between 13 September 2026 and 23 October 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Everythingmk (article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Everythingmk (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
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