I have a little question ...

its soccer at the moment- but trying to go back to football

the national teams still called the "Socceroos"

 

Australia is unique around the world in being the only country that has 4 different football codes that are all very popular. Because of this, they have their own common names to distinguish them from one another - Australian Football is "Aussie Rules", Rugby League Football is "League", Rugby Union Football is "Rugby" (or, less commonly, "Union"). Association Football is "Soccer". The word "football" in normal conversation usually refers to the most dominant code in the area - Aussie Rules in the southern states, and usually League in the eastern states.

For much of our history, the word "Soccer" had been used much the same as it is in the USA - as the only name for the sport. Soccer has never used the word 'football' until a couple of years ago, when the old national body "Soccer Australia" was replaced by "Football Federation Australia", and they announced that the game would now officially be called "Football" in Australia to bring us into line with the rest of the world. It was also used as a marketing technique to rebrand and distance the game from the negative historical images it's had in this country (ethnic violence, corruption, etc). The slogan was "Old Soccer, New Football".

Now the national body, national league, players, officials, etc all call it football. Most of the national press has got on-side with the renaming and now the game is called "football" in most papers, on the news, etc. As woodzie said, soccer is still a highly-used term (particularly with the 'Socceroos') and you still pretty much have to clarify that you're talking about soccer when you say "football". But 'football' is now used frequently and legitimately when referring to the game, whereas before it was never used - if you called it football, you'd be scorned. Previously soccer wasn't even considered a type of football by the majority of the population, now it's a lot more accepted than it used to be.

The next "challenge" is reclaiming the word so that when you say "football" people will automatically think about the Beautiful Game first instead of one of the others. Personally, I don't think it will ever happen. But to me that doesn't matter - the best thing to come out of it is that now it is mostly recognised as a legitimate type of football, which is very important in Australia. The different football codes are the tough, patriotic, men's games in Australia - soccer was seen as foreign and completely different, and had negative and weak imagery attached to it. The renaming and rebranding, plus marketing and increasing the professionalism of the game means that it's being taken more seriously in the country and is moving towards being seen as a legitimate fourth brother in the football family.

 

Oh, by the way, congratulations. This is the 400,000th thread on BigSoccer since the Big Crash during World Cup 2002.