What Does FC Stand For In Soccer?

F.C. are the initials for football club. This is not to be confused with American football, but with soccer. The F.C., or football club, initials are most commonly used in European soccer leagues.

The use of FC as an abbreviation for Football Club has its origins, you guessed it, in Europe. A lot of modern teams have their roots in amateur sporting clubs. For example, a group of guys would get together to play soccer amongst themselves in, say, Liverpool. They would quite literally be the Liverpool Football Club. If two or more soccer clubs joined together, they might go by united instead of simply FC. An example of this would be the world-famous Manchester United. Of course, a town as big as Manchester can support two professional teams, and it’s also home to the Manchester City FC.

Sometimes soccer clubs started as part of a general sports club, which is why you often see the word Sporting in team names.

In the United States, the FC term first took off with the establishment of the Major League Soccer MLS league in 1996. There are now 24 MLS teams in the United States and Canada, and they have plans to expand to 27 teams by 2022 and then later on to 30 teams.

Presently, the teams based in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Columbus, New York City, Orlando City, Toronto, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Seattle, and Vancouver all use the “FC” terminology in their name. Moreover, a proposed future team based in Austin, Texas will be using the terminology as well.

However, this isn’t just an American soccer phenomenon. Throughout the world, this term is readily used. Examples would include FC Liverpool, FC Andorra, Arsenal FC, and FC Barcelona among many others.

Of course, this all begs the question, just why do some teams think using FC in their name is important? It’s possibly because they want to establish themselves within the proud tradition that is soccer, or football if you will. Naturally, the FC term is also heavily utilized to identify a team, and this seems to be especially true within the culture of Europe and the English Premier League.

However, in America, the term FC has not been without its share of controversy. This is possible because the MLS is a newer league in the United States and one that for some reason doesn’t seem to get much respect.

Needless to say, it is time for Americans to give the MLS some credit, especially considering the fact they now have more attendance than many National Hockey League games. Of course, here is one of the main reasons why the term FC could be called controversial in the United States:

 You see, the reason why the term FC is somewhat controversial in the United States is that FC actually stands for Football Club. Some individuals have a little bit of difficulty wrapping their minds around the fact that soccer is called football in other countries. 

This is primarily because of the popularity of the American football league the NFL, which has been around since the early part of the 20th Century. Regardless of whether Americans might get offended or not, the most important thing to remember is that the MLS is a very young league. Thus, if we simply give it time, many sports fans will warm up to the fact that soccer teams are liable to have FC in their name.