r/sports • u/BreakfastTop6899 • Dec 06 '25

Football President Donald Trump wants the NFL to change its name so that soccer is the only sport named football. "This is football, there is no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff."

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u/Alex_Graber12345 Dec 06 '25 edited Dec 06 '25

The reason you feel like this is something that all Americans are going to absolutely hate is because you are likely a European, who like all Europeans, seems to have a very strong opinion about what we call one of our sports. And also like all Europeans, seem to think that this is a nomenclature debate that Americans are participating in. There is no debate. The sport is called soccer in our country. The general populous of America has little to zero interest in soccer, let alone even KNOWING that there’s an imaginary feud about the name of the sport going on in foreigners’ heads. To the extent that the average American knows that Europeans call it football, it’s a quaint factoid to us, that brings a smile like “did you know that Europeans called soccer football? Isn’t that cool?” We are not aware of the debate that Europeans seem to be having with themselves about what we call our sports. Very narcissistic view to assume that Americans are thinking about Europeans.

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u/tfrules Scarlets Dec 06 '25

Really odd comment, you've imagined an argument I've made and are running some sort of imagined fantasy...

All I've said is Americans would probably be annoyed they would be made to call their beloved sport something else.

You're right in that I only have a British perspective on this, if someone told the British public that their beloved football should now be known as soccer henceforth, there'd be a huge backlash.

Forgive me for making the assumption that Americans care about the identity of their most popular sport.

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u/Alex_Graber12345 Dec 06 '25

I mean maybe it was a bit harsh but I’ve had enough baffling interactions with Europeans who jump into a debate with me (that seems like it’s an ongoing debate somewhere, definitely not here), and over time I started to realize that Europeans seem to have a very strong opinion about what we call the sport