snob ball

Snob Ball is what soccer is transformed into, when its national governing body (in a country like Australia, Canada, USA etc) decides to abandon the word "Soccer" and tries to hijack the word "Football". Not just in spite of the fact that there is already a local game called Football, but *because* of it.

You see, in each of these countries there is an undercurrent of soccer fans with a collective chip on their shoulder, who resent the fact that soccer is regarded locally as a boring and weak European game, enjoyed here only by "Children, Snobs and Hooligans". Many of these soccer fans secretly dream of a day when the local game of Football is wiped out and forgotten. Some of them even work in the media.

When Soccer converts to Snob Ball, it harnesses this resentment in the form of snobbery, firstly by sending out a strong signal that it is going to hijack the word "Football", a long-held ambition of many Soccer Snobs. Within a short space of time, the national soccer body changes its name, for instance from "Soccer Australia" to "Football Federation Australia". It forces all state/province and local-level soccer clubs and associations to do the same. It places slogans on television and on billboards nationwide linking Soccer with the word "Football". For greater effect, this may coincide with a high-profile revamp of the national soccer league.

Players and officials of the sport are instructed to insert the word "Football" as many times into one sentence as possible when speaking to the media (even shamelessly stealing the exact name of the existing sport, for example "Australian Football" to describe Australians playing soccer). And a previously invisible army of Soccer Snobs does the same, in schools, workplaces and on the internet.

Through some mixture of snobbery and commercial agreement, certain media organisations also scramble to change their policy on the word "Football". The end result of Snob Ball is that it becomes difficult for even the most passionate football fan to hear the word "football" without thinking about soccer.

Snob Ball began in Sydney in 2005 and has faced surprisingly little resistance in the Australian media. There is no known cure.

Look out North America, Snob Ball could happen to you too some day.

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