Why is American football called football when there foot barely touches it?
Here is an explanation of the varying degrees of football from Wikipedia. American type of football is “gridiron football.” Football is the name given to a number of different team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal. The most popular of these sports world-wide is association football, also known as soccer and most commonly just football. The English language word “football” is also applied to gridiron football (which includes American football and Canadian football), Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby league and rugby union), and related games. Each of these codes (specific sets of rules, or the games defined by them) is referred to as “football”. These games involve: two teams of between 11 and 18 players kicking a spherical or prolate spheroid ball (which is itself called a football) with the foot; a clearly defined area in which to keep the ball; scoring goals and/or points, by m