Why isn´t football (soccer) popular in any ex-british colony?

[Duffmannn]

It seems largely strange to me. Looking at this map of the Commonwealth, that encomprises the colonies that were really influenced by the british (leaving aside countries like Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and so; but including for a strange and unconfessable reason Mozambique, a former portuguese colony), which have cultural, linguistic and genetical ties to Great Britain:



Can be perceived that the map overlaps greatly with the countries where football-soccer is not the king of sports. Moreover, some british ex-colonies, but also very influenced by Great Britain as are Ireland and the USA, are also outside of the football´s world.

The single countries in Commonwealth where football-soccer is really popular are Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon (this last one was really a french colony except for a small stripe bordering Nigeria). Paradoxically in the most british influenced countries, football is not really a thing (South Africa underperforms taking into account its population and economical power in comparison with other african nations, tends to do not qualify to the World Cup or having success in Africa Cup, its football teams are not powerful in the african contest; Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenia, Uganda).

In the most british-influenced countries of the Canazuk, football is also unnoticed.

In all of these countries, the main sports are different codes and variations of rugby (Rugby Union, Rugby League, American Football, Australian Football, Canadian Football, Gaelic Football) and cricket and its by-product, namely baseball. The boom of football in most of this countries began to happen since the turn of the XXI century and keeps going. In Australia, despite having received continuos waves of british inmigrants during the entire XX-XXI century, was restricted to inmigrants of non-british origin until the creation of the A-League; while at the same time it is by far the most followed and practised sport in GB.

I have the theory that the british elites "banned" consciously the practise of football-soccer in its colonies because it was a working class sport (and in the case of Ireland and the USA for anti-british nationalistic reasons). But the Rugby League was so and has had success in Oceania.

Why has this happened? How the british in the prime of its power couldn´t export succesfully football while at the same time it became tremendously popular in the rest of the world?

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At least football is not a semi-closed, endogamic sport where "foreigners" are unwelcomed and despised as happens in Rugby Union or Cricket, where the union try to prevent the expansion to non-british countries actively.

[Hektor12]

Two reasons

-Football is younger than colonies, it became popular in late 1800s, at time time colonies already formed their demographics and culture.
-Colonies cut ties with GB and developed their own authentic culture, to become more independent. So late British culture has not been promoted in colonies. Even today, in the USA people look at "british" things with disgust and think that theyre "banal".

[Creoda]

Because all the various codes of football in the English-speaking world developed parallel to each other in the 19th century, and became entrenched as the local games of choice at a similar time. In the case of Australian, American and Gaelic football, they became nationalistic symbols, helping their popularity further. It has nothing to do with UK policy, the British were not micromanaging what games their own people could play in the colonies, absurd, that was the local culture developing.

Soccer being associated with ethnics/immigrants (kaffirs in SA) didn't help it's cause, and it doesn't help it with me. Despite that, it is popular in Anglosphere countries, just not as much as elsewhere.

[TheMaestro]

Because hockey is sport for real men.

[Creoda]

Because hockey is sport for real men.

Hockey is ironically considered a girl's sport in Britain/Australia, but that's Field Hockey, Ice Hockey basically doesn't exist here.

[TheMaestro]

Hockey is ironically considered a girl's sport in Britain/Australia, but that's Field Hockey, Ice Hockey basically doesn't exist here.

Field Hockey and Ice Hockey are completely different and if that's considered girls sports, then everything is a girls sport. You would get your ass whooped in a hockey match in seconds.

240 pounds guy skating towards you with full weight, good luck.

[Creoda]

Field Hockey and Ice Hockey are completely different and if that's considered girls sports, then everything is a girls sport. You would get your ass whooped in a hockey match in seconds.

240 pounds guy skating towards you with full weight, good luck.

I'd be more impressed if they weren't covered head to toe in padding/helmets. It's also a really stupid game.

[Davystayn]

It is because the ruling elites of the day were into rugby and cricket, to a lesser extent rowing etc.

Football exploded out of industrial working class areas in cities, it wasnt really played by the elites in the colonies - administrators, senior army officers etc, at the time,

[zueira]

Because all the various codes of football in the English-speaking world developed parallel to each other in the 19th century, and became entrenched as the local games of choice at a similar time. In the case of Australian, American and Gaelic football, they became nationalistic symbols, helping their popularity further. It has nothing to do with UK policy, the British were not micromanaging what games their own people could play in the colonies, absurd, that was the local culture developing.

Soccer being associated with ethnics/immigrants (kaffirs in SA) didn't help it's cause, and it doesn't help it with me. Despite that, it is popular in Anglosphere countries, just not as much as elsewhere.

football(fifa) is more popular in Australia than in the USA?

[Creoda]

football(fifa) is more popular in Australia than in the USA?

Relatively. The average Australian would be more knowledgeable and interested in the game than the average American, largely because recent European immigrants make up a much larger portion of the Australian population. Watching FA Cup Finals in Australia was always a bit of a tradition going back decades, it was for my parents and all their expat friends, even though they weren't football fans. Football/Soccer was on free-to-air TV since the 60s. FIFA video games have also been very popular among kids since the 90s.

Australia has also produced arguably as many or more good players as the US, and an equally good national team, despite being a small fraction of their population. Nearly 2 million Australians play football/soccer out of a population of 25 million, and about 3 million are involved including coaches, referees, or fans.