:I agree that this is a fit topic for inclusion. The problem is how to do it without it being "original research". From my own experience football=soccer is the norm among foreign language learners but I don't know of any studies that would confirm this (and I have looked). It's such a pointless area to research that I doubt that it will ever get funded. 
 :The only thing I could suggest is that English-language news channels aimed at a global audience use football=soccer even if the newsreader is North American. Even CNN do this (the CNN channel I get, I very much doubt that they do this in the US).