Donald Trump has weighed in on one of America’s oldest sporting debates, saying the US should start calling soccer “football” and that the NFL should find a different name.
It is a bold view in a country where “football” is almost always associated with the NFL, college gridiron, and the wider American game.
But Trump argued that the global game has a stronger claim to the word.
Donald Trump says soccer should be football
“When you look at what’s happened to football in the United States, soccer in the United States. We seem to never call it that (football) because we have a conflict with another thing that’s called football. But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called? This is football, there is no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff.”
It is a rare stance from an American president. In the US, “football” has always meant the NFL first, even though most of the world uses it for the sport Americans call soccer.
That makes his comment more than just a joke. With the World Cup partly hosted in the US this year, Trump has echoed a view many international fans have voiced for decades.
Why does America say soccer instead of football?
The twist is that “soccer” is not really an American invention. The word actually came from England.
In the 19th century, “association football” was used to distinguish the sport from rugby football. British university slang then shortened association to “assoc,” before the popular “-er” ending helped create “soccer.”
Americans kept the term because their own football code grew quickly. The NFL began as the American Professional Football Association in 1920 and adopted the National Football League name in 1922.
By the time soccer grew into a bigger US spectator sport, football had already been claimed by the NFL and the college game. Even U.S. Soccer reflects that evolution, moving from the United States Football Association to the United States Soccer Football Association and finally the United States Soccer Federation.
US fans still defend the word soccer
That is why Trump’s comment stands out. American soccer fans are often mocked internationally for saying “soccer,” but many now embrace the difference.
During the 2022 World Cup, USMNT supporters even turned the criticism into a chant: “It’s called soccer!”
Those chants highlight why a name change is so unlikely. The NFL is too powerful, the word “football” is too established, and US soccer fans have built a unique identity around a term the rest of the world questions.
Trump may be closer to the global view. But in America, getting fans to switch would be harder than winning the World Cup itself.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
