why is american football called football?

Question

Nothing against it, but why is it calld football when the players use mostly their hands?

Answer 1

because americans wanted to be ignorent and rob the english name.

Answer 2

The first game was football/soccer which dates back to the English middle ages and was/is mostly called football there. Because it is a game played with the foot striking the ball with the hand not allowed in outfield play.

(Soccer is the abbreviated term of "Association Football" which was the term used when the game became professional in England in the nineteenth century).

Rugby emerged as a mutation of football when a boy called William Webb Ellis picked up the ball at Rugby School during a football game there and that game was invented with the name "Rugby Football"

American Football was originally based on Rugby. It dropped the first part and kept the second as it developed.

American's use the name "soccer" (now pretty defunct in England) to differentiate the oldest sport from its younger two times removed descendant.

Simple huh?

Answer 3

American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport.
Both American football and soccer have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, and American football is directly descended from rugby football. Thus the name "football" has carried on, despite the fact that more of the plays in a typical game involve handling the ball rather than kicking it.


Football (also known as association football or soccer) is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each. It is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world.

Football is the name given to a number of different, but related, team sports. The most popular of these world-wide is association football (also known as soccer). The English word "football" is also applied to American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby union and rugby league), and related games. Each of these codes (specific sets of rules) is referred to as "football" by its followers.

Answer 4

Last I saw, europeans usually don't go around running on their hands. And neither do the players in American football.

Answer 5

Why doesn't cricket involve actual crickets? Why is it base-ball when you hit the ball with a BAT? Wouldn't batball make more sense? Maybe baserun? Heck basketball is about the only one that really makes sense. One could easily argue the amount of running is part of why they say football.

Answer 6

yanno I played 8 years of football in school and Im a HUGE fan but I really couldnt tell ya, I hope somebody who knows answers

Answer 7

I really don't know, just that it derived from soccer or futbol and rugby. I guess it has to do with how long the ball is maybe

Answer 8

Why is soccer called football elsewhere in the world ??

Answer 9

well ur not gonna call it handball so football fits best

Answer 10

because we are americans and we have balls

SOCCER players are referred to as "foot fairies"

ever heard the expression, "be a man, use your hand"?

Answer 11

because british soccer is futbol