ABSTRACT
The overall purpose of this chapter is to discuss the potential of football language as a resource in many people's linguistic repertoire, promoting integration in the age of superdiversity. Parallels in the present-day global situation to the early social history of football and football language are suggested. The main focus is on the semantic sphere shared by those interested in football rather than on, e.g., specific lexical or crosslinguistic aspects. At the same time, English, in its dual capacity of the original football language and the world's lingua franca par excellence, is assigned a special role in the discussion.
