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In Australian English, the term "football" may refer to either one of the four major codes of football. The popular usage of the term however, largely depends on the location, cultural background or preference of the speaker.{{cite web|title=Football in Australia|url=http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/football-in-australia|publisher=australia.gov.au|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20110514203516/http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/football-in-australia |accessdate=12 January 2014|archive-date=14 May 2011 }} Until relatively recently, the term "football" usually meant either Australian rules football or rugby league, depending on the regional background of the speaker. This is due to the long-established ties and popularity each sport has to their respective region. Rugby union, which is not as popular as rugby league in Australia, is also sometimes referred to as "football". Association football has been typically referred to as "soccer" in Australia, although due to the recent popularisation of the sport as well as its own "renaming", it is now often referred to as "football".{{cite web|title=Mainstream Aussie press finally adopting the term football as soccer seen as thing of the past|url=http://www.news.com.au/national/mainstream-aussie-press-finally-adopting-the-term-football-as-soccer-seen-as-thing-of-the-past/story-e6frfkp9-1226486030704|publisher=news.com.au|accessdate=21 December 2013}}

The major football codes are also known by various common nicknames, some of which are shared between the codes and others specific to just one. "Footy", for example, is a common nickname for Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union, where as "Aussie rules" is a common nickname for Australian rules football.

{{See also|Barassi Line}}

A historical regional variation of football code has typically divided Australia. The Barassi Line is a rough dividing line between areas where Australia rules football is most popular and where rugby union and rugby league are most popular. Rugby league was historically dominant in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. Australian rules football was historically dominant in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.{{cite book|author=John Bloomfield|title=Australia's Sporting Success: The Inside Story|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NtWto0T5FMEC&pg=PA21|accessdate=2 August 2012|date=1 July 2003|publisher=UNSW Press|isbn=978-0-86840-582-7|page=21}}

Australian rules football was the first football code to be established in Australia. The sport was codified in Victoria, 1858, with the first clubs founded later that year in Melbourne, and first game played the following year in 1859.{{cite book|title=The Encyclopaedia of Australian sports|first=Malcolm|last=Andrews|location=Sydney|publisher=Golden Press|year=1979|isbn=0855588497|oclc=21526949}}{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Crego|title=Sports and Games of the 18th and 19th Centuries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XCl1c2yy5ooC|year=2003|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-31610-4}}{{cite book|author=Ian Craven|title=Australian Popular Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bLbo4sr-xfwC&pg=PA46|accessdate=1 August 2012|date=29 April 1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-46667-7|page=46}} Although the first rugby union team was established at the University of Sydney in 1864,{{cite book|title=Primary Australian History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgRrB74FiqMC&pg=PA90|year=2008|author=R.I.C. Publications|publisher=R.I.C. Publications|isbn=978-1-74126-684-9}} the sport was not established in Australia until 1874, when its first competition commenced in New South Wales.{{cite book|author=James Jupp|title=The English in Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n63TaXC5TpEC&pg=PA175|accessdate=1 August 2012|date=11 May 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-54295-1|page=175}} During the 1890s and 1900s, Australian rules football did not gain much traction in New South Wales or Queensland where rugby union was the predominant code. The major exception was the Riverina area of New South Wales close to the Victorian border, and closer to Melbourne than Sydney.{{cite book | author= Ken Piesse| title=The Complete Guide to Australian Football | publisher =Pan Macmillan Australia | year=1995 | isbn=0-330-35712-3 | pages=200–201}} The sport also found support in the states of South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. In 1907, rugby league was later established in the country, with the sport soon overtaking rugby union in popularity in New South Wales and Queensland in the 1930s, after the game had gone professional.{{cite book|first1=Wladimir|last1=Andreff|first2=Stefan|last2=Szymański|title=Handbook on the Economics of Sport|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PGRkblShhU8C&pg=PA438|accessdate=18 September 2012|year=2006|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-1-84376-608-7}} During the 1980s, the immense mainstream popularity of rugby league and Australian rules football greatly divided the country. Rugby league was the dominant code in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, while Australian rules football dominated in the rest of the country. During the 1980s and 1990s both Australian rules football and rugby league attempted to expand outside their traditional boarders to reflect a more nation-wide approach, although this prove little success.

Both rugby league and rugby union continue to be popular the states of New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, and Australian rules football remains the dominant code of football in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Attempts to move outside these traditional geographic boundaries have largely been unsuccessful, with the codes struggling to gain new fans and participants from dominant codes.{{cite book|title=Sport in Australian history|first1=Daryl|last1=Adair|first2=Wray|last2=Vamplew|location=Melbourne|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|isbn=9780195535907|oclc=37217245}}

Historically, association football was prominent amoung Australian immigrants,{{cite book|author=Ross Solly|title=Shoot Out: Passion and Politics of Soccer's Fight for Survival in Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w5KuAAAACAAJ|accessdate=1 August 2012|date=1 November 2004|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-74031-093-2}} and although its ethnic base helped the sport rise amongst the major football codes, it has somewhat segregated itself from the wider Australian society, unlike that of Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union which are rooted in the Australian culture.{{Cite book|title= A sporting nation : celebrating Australia's sporting life|first1=Eric C|last1=Rolls|first2=Marion|last2=Halligan|first3=Marlene|last3=Mathews|first4=Paul|last4=Cliff|publisher=National Library of Australia|location=Canberra|year=1999|isbn=0642107041|oclc=44839640}}

Although association football formally arrived in Australia in 1880, it failed to capture large scales of popularity. This was unlike Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union, which were already engraved in the sporting psyche of their respective regional area in Australia. It was not until the immediate post-Second World War period when association football saw immense growth. Post-war immigration was directly linked to the sport becoming more commercial and professional in Australia, especially in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, among others.{{cite book|first=John|last=Bloomfield|title=Australia's Sporting Success: The Inside Story|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NtWto0T5FMEC|year=2003|publisher=UNSW Press|isbn=978-0-86840-582-7}}{{cite book|author=Anastasios Tamis|title=The Greeks in Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-DcAcG9FWs8C&pg=PA103|accessdate=1 August 2012|date=30 May 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-54743-7|pages=103–}} South American and European immigrants were bringing their knowledge and culture associated with the sport to Australia. From the 1970s the sport saw success in the form of a national league, although it had not yet managed to enter the Australian mainstream and it was still regarded among the wider community as an ethnic sport; the term "wogball" (a references to the Australian slang: wog) was used as a derogatory term for the sport.{{cite web|url=http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/worldcup/timeline.shtml|title=Timeline of Australian Football|publisher=New South Wales Migration Heritage Centre, Powerhouse Museum|year=2006|accessdate=20 December 2013}} After failed attempts by Soccer Australia (the governing body of the association football) to remove ethnic ties association with the sport,{{cite web|title=MARKETING MEETS MULTICULTURALISM: DAVID HILL'S NATIONAL MERCHANDISING PLAN, 1996-97|url=http://leopoldmethod.com.au/marketing-meets-multiculturalism-david-hills-national-merchandising-plan-1996-97-2/|publisher=Leopold Method|accessdate=21 December 2013}} the governing body chose to adopted the term "football" as the name of the sport, in preference to "soccer", to reposition the sport within the wider Australian society.

Association football continues to have a storing ethnic base in Australia, although its mainstream appeal has increased in recent time, yet it still lags behind the of that other major football codes of Australian rules football, rugby league and rugby union, who themselves lack in ethnic participants.{{cite book|first=Katrina Marie|last=Russell|title=Youth Sport in Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5L_upSbd3AC&pg=PR12|accessdate=3 October 2012|year=2011|publisher=Sydney University Press|isbn=978-1-920899-64-6|pages=11}}

File:Australian football codes participation and attendance.png

The popularity of the major football codes generally vary in its participation and attendance rates. As analysed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in May 2009, although association football is the most popular of the football codes in terms of participation (with 2.6% of the Australian population), it is not reflected in the attendance as it has the lowest spectatorship out of the four major football code (with 3.5%). And although Australian rules football is the most popular of the football codes in terms of spectatorship (with 16%), its participation rate is dramatically reduced, seeing it second behind association football in that category (at 1.7%). As for both rugby league and rugby union, their high attendance rates, especially that of rugby league which sits in front of rugby union at second (at 9.3% and 4.3% respectively), are not reflected in their participation rates, which lack and are the lowest out of the major football codes (at 0.6% and 0.5% respectively).

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• Sport in Australia
• American football in Australia
• Australian rules football in Australia
• Rugby league in Australia
• Rugby union in Australia
• Soccer in Australia

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{{Australian sport}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Football In Australia}}