CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Local soccer fan, Leo Vukinakakas (29) has today made a point of pulling up a flowing conversation to point out that the word ‘soccer’ is redundant in his vocabulary and should never be used to describe ‘football’.
Leo says referring to ‘European football’ as ‘soccer’ is disrespectful, and as a member of a large family of soccer fans, he insists it is something Australians must stop doing.
“Nowhere else in the world calls it soccer” he says.
“Australia is the only one, there is no reason to”
Aside from the fact that Australia already has three other, more dominant, sporting codes that go by the term ‘football’ and that the Australian national soccer team is known as the ‘socceroos’ – Leo insists on trotting out the same old shit, while in conversation with non-soccer fans.
“Would you refer to running as swimming?” he says.
“Why is rugby and AFL called football? They barely use their feet – not like real football”
“It’s actually the only sport where you can only touch the ball with your feet, unless you are the goalie” says the die-hard Arsenal fan, who has spent his entire life justifying why he supports a sporting team from a town he’s never been to on the other side of the world.
Mr Vukinakakas’ rant about the terminology used to describe ‘football’ were then followed by statistics about how fast soccer is growing in Australia amongst kids who only play sport because they have to.
