Soccer vs Football

Where "soccer" came from

The word is usually traced to students at the University of Oxford, who liked to shorten words and add "-er": rugby became "rugger", and "association" (as in association football, the game under the rules of the Football Association) became "soccer". Early spellings included "socker" and "socca", and the word was in common use in British newspaper reports by the 1890s.

So "soccer" is a British coinage, not an American one. It only came to sound American later, when British usage settled on "football" and the United States, where the gridiron game had taken the name, kept "soccer" as the everyday word. The same Oxford habit explains why older British writing sometimes mentions "rugger" and "soccer" in the same sentence: they were simply the student names for the two football codes that split in the 1860s and 1870s.

Why "soccer" survived outside Britain

The word lasted where "football" could mean something else. In the United States and Canada, "football" meant the gridiron game; in Australia it often meant Australian rules or rugby league. Calling the round-ball game "soccer" avoided confusion, and the habit stuck.

South Africa sits in the same group. Rugby has a strong claim on the word "football" in parts of the country, and "soccer" became the everyday name for the round-ball game in many communities, alongside "football". Newspapers, radio and fans switch between the two without anyone blinking.

What South African football bodies call the game

The official names show the split neatly. The top professional league is the Premier Soccer League (PSL), while the national governing body, to which the PSL is affiliated, is the South African Football Association (SAFA). Neither body appears to publish a rule on which word to prefer, and both words appear side by side in match reports and on broadcasts.

In South Africa's other languages the game has its own names, but they vary by language and region, so the English pair is the one shared across the country.

The practical takeaway: in South Africa "soccer" and "football" are both correct for the same sport. "Soccer" is the older British slang that stayed useful in a rugby-loving country, and "football" is the international word used by SAFA, FIFA and CAF. Use whichever the audience uses; the Premier Soccer League and the South African Football Association already do both.