Saturday, June 6th 2026 - 08:00 UTC
British university students created their own slang at the time, abbreviating words and “association football” was shortened to “assoc” and slanged to “soccer.”
By Kirk Bowman (*) - At the 2026 World Cup draw, FIFA Peace Prize recipient and U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the game should really be called “football.”
“There’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL. It really doesn’t make any sense,” said Trump, an apparently new convert to the round-ball game.He isn’t alone. The word “soccer” is, in some parts of the world, shunned by some fans.
Indeed, as a scholar of the sport who teaches a course called Soccer and Global Politics, I am bombarded with comments that the word “soccer” does not make any sense, and that people who use that term obviously know nothing about the beautiful game.
