Football conversation questions

In the United States football refers to American football, a sport played with an oval ball.

In most other countries football is association football, a sport played with a spherical ball and the topic of this article.

General topics[edit]

• Typically the same clubs win every time. Is this fair? How could things be changed?
• Many years ago players for a particular team used to only come from that team's local area. Nowadays players for "local" teams come from all over the world. What is your opinion of this change?
• In some countries there seems to be a link between violence and vandalism with football. Why should this be?
• Which country has the most enjoyable football?
• Do you ever watch women's football? Why, why not?
• Should hooligans be banned from football?

Football changes?[edit]

Football is a very popular game – but could it be improved? Joseph “Sepp” Blatter came up with some innovative suggestions some time ago about improving the spectacle.^[1] Before looking at his suggestions, how do you think that the game could be improved?

• How could it be made more interesting?
• How could women’s football be made more popular as a spectator sport?
• Are there ways in which the game could obtain more money from advertising?
• How could the quality of referees’ decisions be improved? Should the quality of their decisions be improved or are debates about their decisions a necessary part of the game?
• How could the game be made less dangerous for skillful players?
• Would you like to see any changes in the “extra time” rule?
• Are there any other changes you would like to see?
• How can technology improve football?
• Do you think that football has changed in last 10 years?
• What will football be like 100 years from now?

Suggestions for improvement[edit]

Mr Blatter’s ideas are summarised below. Suggestions from others are shown in italics. What do you think of each idea?

• Draws should be eliminated and penalties should be used to give a result for every game.
• Tighter and “more feminine” clothes for female players would make the spectacle more popular.
• Female players should have a kit based on tennis clothes.
• Male players should also have more revealing kit.
• Aggressive tackles should be prohibited so as to protect more skilful players.
• Bigger goals would allow for more goals to be scored.
• Goal posts should be made substantially thicker so that a near miss would be more likely to rebound into play.
  • Neon advertising could be placed on the thicker posts.
  • Points could be given for rebounds off the thicker posts.
• The linesman could be on pitch to assist the referee.
• Two or more referees could be on the pitch at the same time.
• All referees should be professional.
• The game could be divided into quarters to allow for more TV advertising.
• The offside rule should be abolished.
• Extra time should be abolished.

Football players (footballers)[edit]

• What is your opinion of football players' salaries?
• A football player has a career of, perhaps, 15 years. With such a short working life, do they deserve high salaries?
• What are the disadvantages of playing football for a living?

Vocabulary[edit]

• draw: when two teams score the same number of goals, and therefore there is no winner.
• fan: abbreviation of fanatic, an enthusiast.
• FIFA /ˈfiːfə/: International Federation of Association Football is the governing body of association football.
• footie, footy: informal names for Association football (British English)
• hooligan: noisy and violent sports fan.
• pitch: the rectangular field where a sport is played.
• soccer^AmE /ˈsɒkər/: In the United States, association football (the topic of this article) is called soccer derived from the spelling of the word "association".

See also[edit]

• Sport conversation questions
• The World Cup conversation questions

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Learning English Through Football, weekly podcast