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The word soccer is actually a British term that comes from Association Football, US historians have found.

They were investigating the history of the word, and the cultural difference behind it.

In fact, the use of the term goes back 200 years, they said.

The word 'soccer' comes from the use of the term 'association football' in Britain and goes back 200 years, they said.

'Americans have long referred to Association football as 'soccer', to the point where many people believe it is fact a word invented in America,' wrote University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski.

'Many seek to associate American use of the word with alleged American imperialism and cultural hegemony.'

The researchers found the word soccer in fact originated in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, and was commonly used there.

'It appears that as the popularity of soccer has grown in the US, the word has been used less and less.

The paper analysed usage of the two words from 1900, and found British people only stopped using about 30 years ago.

Americans invented their own variant of the game that they simply called 'football' in the early 1900s.

When England won the World Cup in 1966 the use of the term soccer was just beginning to decline in the UK

'Association football' became 'soccer' in America, and what was called 'gridiron' in Britain became simply 'football' in America.

'Since 1980 the usage of the word 'soccer' has declined in British publications, and where it is used, it usually refers to an American context,' the researchers say.

'This decline seems to be a reaction against the increased usage in the US which seems to be associated with the highpoint of the NASL around 1980.'