why do americans call a game like rugby football when they hardly use legs ?

Question

The real game that people use leg they call it soccer. I think soccer is football and what american call football should be handball or soccer

Answer 1

Well as you refered to us we are americans these are american games and we'll call them whiney brits if we want so go on a british forum if you dont like it

Answer 2

The word 'Football' is usually used to describe the most popular code of football in a particular country. You might be surprised to learn that Canadians, Australians, Irishmen, New Zealanders and some Welshmen may refer to 'football' but mean a sport other than 'soccer'. Association Football (the full name of the game otherwise known as 'soccer') is not the only game that has the right to call it as such, there is also Gaelic football, Australian rules football, Rugby football (2 codes - union and league), American football and Canadian Football. Neither is association football the 'original' football code as is usually believed, as the original game of 'Football' was a mish-mash of a game whose rules differed across Britain, and in the 1820's the game split into two codes, one code where you couldn't handle the ball, and one where you could (i.e. rugby).

Answer 3

Because the first form of American football was a lot like rugby, and you could only advance the ball through kicking it or running it. There was no forward passing like there is today. That's where the foot in football came from... i think

Answer 4

Ok, here's the deal. America's football, is football in America. That's the way it is, that's the way it's going to stay. Since Rugby seems similar to American Football it's referred to by American's as football.

Please read below:

Before the 19th century, when modern forms of football first emerged, the name "football" was applied to a widely-differing variety of codes of rules. Although there are mentions of native Americans playing ball games, modern American football has its origins in traditional ball games played at villages and schools in Europe for many centuries before America was settled by Europeans. There are reports of early settlers at Jamestown, Virginia playing games with inflated balls in the early 17th century.

As is the case with many sports, modern football games were popularized in the USA by students at and/or from elite schools and universities. These appear to have had much in common with the traditional "mob football" played in England, especially on Shrove Tuesday.

By 1820, a notoriously violent game known as "ballown" was being played at the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University). In 1827, a Harvard University student composed a humorous epic poem called The Battle of the Delta, one of the first accounts of football in American universities. Also in the 1820s, students at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, were playing a kicking game that would be called "Old Division Football" (for which they published rules in 1871).

Answer 5

American football is not called rugby, it is different. Rugby is played by Britain,South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and others.
Australian Football is different again to soccer and rugby and then you have Gaelic Football.
What the hell do you think they all use to kick the ball, their head or knee or chest no they use their Foot.

Answer 6

You're an idiot.

I don't go into the soccer category and proclaim that it shouldn't be called 'football' (in fact I don't go into the soccer category at all).
So why would you go into the American football category?

Because you are an idiot!

Answer 7

That's been the name of the game for 130 years, it's just a name and we're not going to change it, find something else to obsess about.

Answer 8

not to sure