Use of the word "football"

The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region. So, effectively, what the word "football" means usually depends on where one says it.

Players assemble at the line of scrimmage in an American football game.

Association football has generally been known as "soccer" in the U.S, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand where other codes of football are dominant, while in francophone Quebec, where Canadian football is more popular, the sport of association football is known as le soccer^[68] and the Canadian code as football. Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, almost all now use "football" in their organizations' official names, although Canada and the United States the national football organizations continue to use the name "Soccer" in their titles, and several others have only recently "normalized" to using "Football", including:

• Australia's association football governing body changed its name in 2007 from using "soccer" to "football"^[69]
• New Zealand also changed in 2007, saying "the international game is called football".^[70]
• Samoa changed from "Samoa Football (Soccer) Federation" to "Football Federation Samoa" in 2009