Arriving in the U.S. from Belgium to cover the World Cup, one overarching controversy stood out from the Iran war, visas and commercial exploitation: Should POLITICO call the sport football or soccer?
Our style guide entry — “The worldwide sport should be referred to as football in Europe and soccer in the U.S. In European copy, refer to American football for the different U.S. sport played in the NFL” — didn’t end the debate.
Ultimately, America won the internal argument (quelle surprise!) and we’ll be calling it soccer for the next five weeks, despite FIFA’s name literally having the word football in it.
Lucky, really, that it’s not the Fédération Internationale de “Soccer“ Association — as that would have sparked some confusion about which FISA exactly we were talking about in the newsroom this summer. Surveillance, section 702 and Bill Pulte? Or the low block, gegenpressing and Gianni Infantino?
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