Languages and the World Cup

On June 14^th, 2018, the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 kicked off. For the first time, the World cup takes place in 2 continents: Europe and Asia. There are 32 teams participating from the same number of different countries. Such Babel tower, in Which language do they communicate?    

This sport that we are referring to in this article has an interesting relationship with languages. Starting with English, the language where its name was originated. Part of the English world, like in the UK, use the word football, but an important number of English speakers use the word Soccer, in North America for example (In the USA, the word football has a different meaning. According to etymo online, the word football comes from foot + ball referring to a game where a ball is kicked. The word Soccer came from a university slang, from a shortened form of Assoc, abbreviation of association so we have “soc + er”. I invite my readers to check the history of both words in this page.

Today, the word football is known all over the world. Many languages have borrowed it. We have “Fútbol” (Spanish), “Football” (French), “Fußball” (German), “Futebol” (Portuguese), “Футбол” (Russian), “Fotboll” (Swedish), “فوتبال“ (Persian).

The word Soccer has also some influence. We have”サッカー “ [Sakkā] in Japanese and “Sokker” in Afrikaans. It is interesting to note that this word is also used in Quebec (French language in Canada).

But some languages prefer to use their own terms for this sport. In Italian, we have the word “Calcio”, and in Chinese “足球” [zú qiú]. Its different meanings are still related to the action of kick a ball.    

FIFA is the international governing body for all the football associations and responsible for the major international tournaments. But the acronym FIFA, (in French: Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has also an interesting component. Those who know French know that we do not say Football Association, but association de football.  The origin of this name goes back to 1904, the year when FIFA was founded in Paris, France, by 7 football associations. French was the main language used in international gatherings and they already used the name Football association, like in English (British influence). 

FIFA is now located in the multicultural city of Zürich in Switzerland.  It has a membership of 211 national associations. According to its statutes, the official languages are English, French, German and Spanish. English is the language used officially for announcements and correspondence. The official documents are published in those 4 languages and in case of discrepancies the authoritative version is the English one. FIFA’s Congress is the supreme body of this organization. Beside the 4 official languages here mentioned, the Congress accepts officially Arabic, Russian and Portuguese too.  

What happens with International matches? Do referees and players need to know those languages? Referees are required to speak English and in at least one more language. In most cases, they speak their native language and English is their second language. Referees who speak more languages are welcome. English is important because referees are required to attend Workshops and training sessions that are in this language. English is also the language when they speak with colleagues who speak a different mother tongue. Meanwhile, players are not required to speak in a specific language; most of the times they communicate using body language and they know keywords related to football in English.

But although players may not be required to learn any language, some famous players, especially those who have experience playing in different clubs in Europe, they can express themselves in different languages. We have the case of the Swedish player Zlatan Ibrahimović, who speaks Swedish, Bosnian, English, Italian and Spanish. The Armenian player born in the ex-Soviet Union, Henrikh Mkhitaryan can speak Russian, Armenian, Ukrainian, German and English. Luis Figo knows Portuguese, Spanish, English and Italian. French football manager, Arsène Wenger can speak French, German, English and some Japanese.  If you read some pages on the Internet, you will find articles where those football professionals are described as speaking more languages. I personally don’t know much about football, so I have just checked where they worked before writing about the languages that they know. But although people may think that football professionals have not many academic credentials, we can find real polyglots among them. In the video on Youtube, they show a list of football professionals who are polyglots and the languages they speak. The Resume of FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, states that he can speak Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. 

If there is a language that deserves special mention in the history of the world cups, it is Spanish. Russia 2018 is the 21^st edition of the world cup. Spanish has been the best-represented language in terms of the number of teams in 14 out of 21 world cups editions. This includes current edition in Russia 2018 with 8 teams, Brazil 2014 with a record of 9 teams from Spanish speaker countries, and the unique case of the world cup Uruguay 1930, where 7 out of 13 teams who participated, represented countries where Spanish is the main language, the only case where the majority of countries speak in the same language. If we check the full list of the finalist of World cup, including Russia 2018, we have the participation of 15 Spanish speaker countries, 12 English speakers, 10 French speakers and 8 Arabic speakers. We must remember that there are more countries in the world who speak English, French or Arabic. 

Here is my list:

-Spanish: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, México, Panamá (Just debuted in Russia 2018), Paraguay, Peru, Spain and Uruguay.

-English: UK,USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Cameroon, Ireland, Nigeria, Jamaica, Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago.

-French: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Cameroon, Senegal, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Togo and Zaire.

-Arabic: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.   

This list may have variations; Countries like Canada and Cameroon are counted in both lists as English and French speakers. The UK is counted as one country while in FIFA it is represented by 4 associations: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria might be counted as French speakers and if you check the list of members of La Francophonie, we might have more. But no doubt that Spanish has been really important in all the world cups.  

From 8 countries who have been world champions, (As far as today June 24, 2018) 3 of them speak Spanish: Spain, Argentina and Uruguay.  5 countries from this group have organized the world cup in their territories (Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay). From 1978 to 1986, we had the unique case where we had 3 consecutive editions of the world cup organized in Spanish Speaker countries (Argentina 78, Spain 82 and Mexico 86).

It is interesting to note that in the world cup France 98, there were 7 teams where English was their language and 6 Spanish speakers. In South Africa 2010 we had 8 teams representing English and 7 for Spanish.  

It is expected that the next edition in Qatar 2022, will boost participation from countries of the Arab world, being Qatar the first Arabic speaker country who organizes this tournament.

In August 2016,I published an article about Olympic Games and Languages. This sports event attracts as much attention as football world cup. Both events have to deal with multiple languages, but there are differences. In FIFA events, English is the main working language while for Olympic games French is preferred. Olympic games are limited to one city that has to deal with all the logistic, while the World Cup is organized by a whole country. While in the last Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, visitors were in contact with one local language, Portuguese, In Russia visitors might find that there are parts of Russia where locals speak Russian and a different language. Fans who went to see onsite the match between Spain and Iran, the match between France and Australia and the match between Colombia and Poland, All of them in the city of Kazan, may find that locals speak in Tatar, a language similar to Turkish; Those who went to see onsite the match between Peru and Denmark, and Colombia Vs Japan, may find that some locals speak in one of two very uncommon languages outside Russia, that are Moksha and Erzya language. Some other languages can be found in the biggest cities in Russia, a product of local migrations.   

    

Before finish this article, I leave a link to an article in Babble about football idioms in different languages. The expression I liked the most was: Tiro Telefonato (in Italian: a telephoned shot), when a shot is very predictable.

FIFA world cup is an event that needs to deal with many different languages. For those who can succeed in breaking the language barriers is an excellent opportunity to know new places and meet new friends. But like I read more than once during my research, Football itself might be the most international language.