From another message board:
(PS: Points for the Clue ref.)
I have to say, it does strike me as odd that this is the only country that seems to have a different word for this particular sport. I’m not sure I’d go as far as the second commenter, tho’.
Thoughts, everyone?
“Soccer” comes from the game’s proper name, association football, according to this page (and others). The author says that the name “soccer” is actually British, and that the term is also used - maybe just some of the time - in Australia and Canada.
Basically, this sounds like one of those cases where people want to make up an excuse to call Americans arrogant and stupid, and they’ve latched on to a completely stupid example. If Moore is right, it says more about the complaining commentators than it does about Americans.
But why is American football called “football”? They use their feet only for running and the occasional kick.
I honestly wouldn’t know what to call it if I didn’t call it “soccer.” I reckon I could say “futbol” or “football”, but that would lead to countless cries of, “Wait, which one?!?” each and every day.
This is just an two guys who are themselves arogant, looking for a reason to call Americans arrogant. Woo!
If it’s arrogant for Americans to say “soccer,” then it’s also arrogant for the British to say “lift” instead of “elevator.”
“Soccer” and “Football” are just two different ways of referring to the SAME THING, which is a game where a ball is kicked into a goal. Jesus! Let’s get along!
See, this is why I’ve taken to calling it “European football.” Now, instead of it being some special case, it’s right alongside Aussie rules football, Gaelic football and American football.
Canadians generally call it “soccer”. I’ve known maybe two or three people that say “football” instead.
A cursory search on Wikipedia yielded no immediate answer. It seems to me that it just sorta happened over time, as the Americans, when making changes to the game that distinguished it from rugby, may not have had anything else to call it. It seems that the two types of “football” were then called rugger and soccer, which may have left the name “football” up for grabs, so to speak.
It’s historically been known as soccer in Australia. And in New Zealand too. Its supporters in Australia have made strong attempts in recent times to get Australians to call it football. I’m not sure how successful they’ve been.
I don’t have a cite, but rugby, soccer, and american football were all called football back in the day in British universities. Rules weren’t formal and so if you wanted to play some football not everybody agreed on which one you were going to play. They started calling different set of the rules by different names such as association football with gets shortend to soccer.
If Americans are insisting that everyone else call it soccer, then that would be arrogant. Otherwise, no.
Anyway, in Japan both terms are used. The primary term used by the J-League on their official site is “football”, but it’s not uncommon to encounter “soccer” on TV and in print.
The game played with helmets and a pointy ball is called “American Football” or “amefuto” and there is a Japan American Football League.
I grew up in Australia, and we only ever called it soccer.
Furthermore, Australians aren’t even consistent in the sport they call “football.”
If you’re from Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth, then by football you probably mean Australian Rules football. If you’re from Sydney, Canberra, or Brisbane, you might mean Aussie Rules, but you might also mean rugby league or even (less frequently) rugby union.
BTW, my answer to the OP: no, definitely not.
Considering that the American Youth Soccer Organization uses the name for the sport they’re trying to popularize in this country, I highly doubt it’s arrogance that fuels the use of the term.
English people have used the expression as well, especially if they went to a public school (English usage) where Rugby was the traditional sport. There’s a reference in one of George MacDonald Fraser’s “McAuslan” stories, where one of the Glaswegian squaddies is in a regimental quiz and confirms to the quizmaster that he does indeed mean “soccer” when he says “football”. So no, it’s not in the least arrogant on the part of Americans, although it’s unusual to see you rebellious colonials lining up with upper-class English affectations. 
“Elevator”? An elevator is part of an aeroplane, my good man. :rolleyes:
Why should that be a consideration?
Well, because of the whole “foot” th…
gives up
Football to me always meant Rugby. I loathe rugby but the All Blacks meant football to me ie :“I went to the football” meant someone went to a rugby game.
I am well aware that this World Cup is wanting to claim the name football (and so it should! It is the real football!) but the term football has been owned by many sports in many countries.
Psst… it’s spelled “Airplane” 
An Elevator is a boxy device used to move people up and down between floors where stairs would be impractical or inconvenient (or, to be honest, where they would require actual effort). A Lift is a kind of shoe. A Pint is merely an undersized Pitcher. 
But yeah, we’re not arrogant because we call the game Soccer. That’s not to say we’re not arrogant, but what we call Soccer has nothing to do with it.
Mostly we call the game Soccer so as not to confuse it with Football. On that note, everyone else calls our Football names like “American Football” or “Futbol Norteamericano” or “Rugy for Pansies” etc. We could call it “American Football” but that would be silly, at least from our POV. Hence, Soccer to tell it apart from the sport that mostly only gets played in our country. Similarly, I’ve never met ANYONE in Texas who called Texas Tea “Texas Tea”. We just call it tea.
As for why we call football football, from what I understand, we call it that because the game is descended from the same game Soccer is descended from, so both happened to come up with a common name despite the various changes to the game making the actual use of feet relatively limited in our version of the game.
Association Football --> Football in locations where it is the dominant sport, Soccer in many others
Australian Rules Football --> Football in locations where it is popular
American Football --> Football, in North America where it is the most popular game of its type
Gaelic Football --> Football, in some areas where it is popular
Anyone spot a pattern? There’s no arrogance in any of it.
The exception is rugby, with AFAIK neither code getting called ‘football’ regularly, anywhere.
No, that’s the name of a funny movie.
No, a “boot” is part of a car, a “trunk” is part of an elephant…
I thought that was baseball? Now I’m really lost. 
heh… a Pint is merely an undersized Pint, m’friend. Over here we drink 'em 20oz at a time… [zombie voice]Join usss… Join usss…[/zv]
Damn Yanks with their “candy” bars and their chewing gum and their cheap nylons. (What were GIs doing being issued with nylons anyway?)
And that’s right on the money. When you get back to the roots, “football” was less a game involving kicking a ball around, and more about an orchestrated fight between neighbouring villages, with an inflated bladder as the causus belli.