bet on football

Sections 2.2.10 and 3.1 ought to be ammended. Firstly, Ireland ought to be included in those countries listed whereby football (often) refers to another sport other than Association Football (Soccer). In rural areas, the term Football soley refers to Gaelic Football and the Irish media use a convention whereby Association Football is referred to as 'Soccer' and Gaelic Football as just that.
The origins of Gaelic Football predate the 19th Century as the post implies. This addition ought to be made:
The first mention of football in Ireland is found in 1308, where John McCrocan, a spectator at a football game at Newcastle, County Dublin was charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard.
The Statute of Galway of 1527 allowed the playing of "foot balle" and archery but banned "'hokie' [sic] — the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves" as well as other sports. However even "foot-ball" was banned by the severe Sunday Observance Act of 1695, which imposed a fine of one shilling (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught playing sports. It proved difficult, if not impossible for the authorities to enforce the Act and the earliest recorded inter-county match in Ireland was one between Louth and Meath, at Slane, in 1712.
The first references to the nature of play was in 1670: the ball may be held and struck either hand or foot. Often referred to as peil (see modern Peil Gaelach).
Football was thought to have been introduced into Ireland by the Normans in the 12-13th centuries and was predominantly played in the south and east of the country. There were no references to Football in the Brehon Laws (Fénechas).
Caid refers not to a specific code of football but the equipment used i.e. the ball. The Field Game as it was played in Kerry was the principal basis for that code of football played by the Limerick club, Commercials, upon which Maurice Davin is thought to have drawn inspiration. It was a pitch-based, field game composed of two opposing teams that took turns defending a 'goal', which comprised the boughs of two stripped trees tied to one another in the characteristic 'H'. Different scores were indicated depending upon whether the ball was driven above or below the bar.
Gaelic Football is similar to Australian-Rules Football, although their common origin is disputed. What is not in dispute, however, is that the Irish of Victoria played football (noted in 1843). Also, most Irish convicts at that time were either Rebels (or their descendents) from the 1798 Rebellion and thus predominantly from the south-east of Ireland.football" is used in english-speaking countries to refer to a sport. The greater percentage of that population lives in the USA or Canada - where "football" means the contact sport involving two teams of 11 players each. Thus, because this is in the English Wikipedia, this page should explain that sport - not soccer. Failing that, a disambiguation page should be used.
i aggree with this. there should be two pages Olulade (talk) 14:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC) There's nothing quite like flogging a dead horse is there? Grant Talk 14:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC) Absolutely correct...this is a dead horse issue, but those "soccer" fans contuinue to argue that here at Wikopedia, soccer should be known as football. Not disgraceful of course, but annoying! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.114.80 (talk • contribs) 28 December 2007 When an english speaking user types in "football" - chances are (due to population numbers) he/she is not looking for soccer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.36.112.169 (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC).
Did you look at the article first or just jump right in with the vandalising? It's actually about all types of football not just soccer. Also Canadian football has 12 players not 11. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC) The comments posted by 68.36.112.169 (talk) should be disregarded for a number of reasons. The number of english speaking people on this planet exceeds the number of people in english speaking countries, so the relative numbers of people in North America is not a reasonable indication of anything. Large numbers of people in the EU use english as a second or third language and if a subject is not adequately covered in sources available in their first language, they will will use the english wikipedia as a reference. They would not expect a Wikipedia page on football to only cover American football. The same goes for people in China, Japan, South America, etc. I wonder how many countries user 68.36.112.169 has visited and did he/she have to learn the language of that country, or did he/she find that there were people in those countries that spoke english? Well, feel free keep wondering, but keep it to yourself. Please refrain from spamming your random musings on talk pages. 75.0.66.253 07:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC) Even if english speakers in North America (who may or may not be football fans) were the majority of english speakers, the English Wikipedia does not mean, The wikipeda for people from english speaking countries and all those funny people from countries that speak funny languages and eat funny food and worship funny gods should stay away... In wikipedia we must write articles from a Neutral point of view, which includes freedom from systemic bias, including Geographical Bias. User 68.36.112.169 is a vandal who has vandalised the Football page 5 times on 10 February 2007 (UTC), and is now attempting to put foward an argument to excuse his vandalism. Disclaimer: Football does not generally mean association football (soccer), in my county either, but it would be absurd to have an Wikipedia article on Football without including association football (and others). --Xagent86 (Talk contribs) 05:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Both arguments are quite strong. However: While it is possible that there are more speakers of British English (and other forms that prefer "football = soccer"), this would only be the case if we were counting non-native speakers. And while I'm all in favour of the English Wikipedia being useful to non-native speakers, there is no logical reason why they should decide the location of articles ahead of native speakers. I mean even if I spoke/wrote fluent French or Japanese, I would still be hesitant to suggest how the French or Japanese Wikipedias could be better organised. As far as English speakers in the EU are concerned, it is a myth that they overwhelmingly favour British usage. For instance, in German-speaking countries, soccer is füssball and "football" is used for American football. Similarly, if you Google for "soccer" on English language pages on .de, .fr, .it (etc) sites, you will get quite a few hits, because U.S. English is not uncommon in Europe.

I don't see how it REALLY matters. Seems like this whole discussion is not about names, but rather it's just a pretext for a fight between nationalities and sports. Everyone knows 'soccer' is the world's most popular sport, dwarfing American football by enormous numbers. The point about 'fussball' and 'football' is irrelevant: 'fussball' came first, then they needed a word for the american sport. It's true this is an English language encyclopedia, but it seems like it should be a factor that the majority of the world's languages' words for football are based on that word, rather than soccer. And, to the comment above, you chose the country that's most influenced by American culture in Western Europe, that enjoys basketball and is even very remotely interested in American sports. I assure you that most countries would use the word that's most similar to their own language - FOOTBALL, and so would Germans if they didn't already have a word for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.84.215 (talk) 16:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
China is debatable, but I am reliably informed that Japanese speakers of English favour U.S. usage, and the Japanese word for association football is sakkaa (derived from soccer). I suspect that South Americans have also mostly learnt U.S. English, so the same goes there. There is simply not enough information/evidence about non-native speakers to decide either way, which is part of the reason why this page is not simply about American football or soccer, and never will be. Grant Talk 07:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC) I am someone who spent over five years working in that particular industry and just because someone prefers 'movie' over 'film' and 'elevator' over 'lift' does not mean that they will favour 'soccer' over 'football'. The choice is mostly down to their first language, Spanish speakers are likely to say 'football' not 'soccer'. It's still no reason to change the page, if the page was given over to one sport or another, we would still need to find a new name for this page. What better name exists for this page other than football?GordyB 13:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC) That's an easy one...."soccer"!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.18.52.185 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 8 January 2008 Sure, I suspect it varies from country to country. Bear in mind the German usage of "football" I have quoted, and let me point out that someone who says fútbol or futebol in their own language, does not necessarily mean soccer if they say "football" when speaking English. Taking Google hits of Latin American sites as an example: "542,000 for soccer" site:.br" and "296,000 for football site:.br"; "206,000 for football site:.ar"; "189,000 for soccer site:.ar" and "199,000 for soccer site:.mx" and "90,500 for football site:.mx". That says to me that Brazilians and Mexicans are likely to call the game "soccer" when speaking English, whereas Argentinians favour British usage. Some might consider that odd and/or ironic, but Argentina was long considered an anglophile country, prior to a certain disagreement in 1982. Grant Talk 14:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC) Internet usage tends to be commercial. A lot of the 'soccer sites' seem to be trying to sell things to Americans. As for Argentinians, the old joke is that an Argentinian is an Italian who speaks Spanish and would like to be English.GordyB Interesting info. "Fußball" is literally "football" in German, meaning soccer, whereas they have taken the English "football" into German as a "foreign word" for American football. There is or was a tabletop soccer game call "foosball" that was popular in the USA a couple of decades ago. "Fútbol" is what soccer is called in Spanish, a "spanishized" transliteration of "football", and the foreign word "football" is also used in Spanish. In French, supposedly "football" as a foreign word is used for soccer, and "football americain" is used for American football. If there isn't already such a section or article, maybe there could be one, of the different names for this family of games in various languages. Wahkeenah 10:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC) See football (word) Jooler 10:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC) And football (soccer) names. Grant Talk 15:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Roger. It occurs to me there's a fair amount of overlap in those articles, as well as with the football article. Seems like overkill somehow... too many words. Maybe that situation will fix itself over time. Wahkeenah 15:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC) It also occurs to me that this is vaguely analogous to the term "corn". Cereal grains are grown all over the world, and the main grain of a given country is usually called "corn". In the US it's varieties of maize. In the UK, as I understand it, it's wheat or rye... and so on. Basically you have the same situation. "Football", by itself, is the predominant version of football in a given country. In the US, it's American football. In Canada, it's Canadian football. In the UK and Europe and Latin America and so on, it's "soccer football", a longer version of the term that isn't used much nowadays, but it serves to distinguish the name. I guess poor li'l old Rugby isn't the predominant football game in any country. That's the way things go. Wahkeenah 15:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Rugby union is the national sport in Wales, New Zealand and many of the Pacific Islands. Grant Talk 16:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Excellent. Whenever I think of Rugby, I think of a couple of bumper stickers I used to see around campus: "Give blood... play Rugby!" and "To play Rugby you need leather balls!" Why the women's Rugby team had that second one, I don't want to know. Wahkeenah 16:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)