Name

Main article: Names for association football

The rules of association football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football. The first written "reference to the inflated ball used in the game" was in the mid-14th century: "Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe".^[9] The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word "soccer" was "split off in 1863".^[9] According to Partha Mazumdar, the term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford "-er" abbreviation of the word "association".^[10]
Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use "football" for the formal name.^[11]