Greetings Raiders Fans
Seems to be a bit of confusion here....all i want to say is that its perfectly acceptable to refer to Union, League, AFL, Soccer etc as football.....basically because they are ALL different subtypes of football that come under the general descriptive name "football"
Union was originally invented as an offshoot of "soccer" (its official name is Rugby Football, it was invented at Rugby School in England) and since League is a further offshoot of Union, you can obviously refer to it as football as well, even though thats not its official name.
Im not sure about the history of AFL (being a New Zealander) but i assume its much the same thing. As the guy above me somewhere said, the whole thing dates back to the 19th century when rules were not standardised and different localities in England would play different types of football with different rules...but they would all come under the umbrella description of "football" (which has continued to the present day)
Personally i refer to the codes as: Rugby Union =Rugby/football/footy(occasionally)
Rugby League = League
AFL = Aussie Rules
"Football" = Soccer
But anyway, if youre trying to argue that "football" is a special title reserved for the spherical ball game, youre totally incorrect
