I a pretty sure the vast majority of people in the UK understand that Football is the association kind while Rugby is referred to as Rugby which, if we are being pedantic about it, can be league or union. As this is standard usage across all the media in he UK it is a bit daft to refer to it as anything other than football here.

The US is a different case. The term football has become common usage for the game they play there and, as a relative newcomer, 'soccer' has had to take on an alternate name.

Joe - We don't have cheerleaders. There is no need for such distractions in the games played here :-) What we do have, to add a further much misused term, is Morris dance troupes which have nothing to do with Morris dance as in the folk tradition but are groups of, usually, young ladies performing a set march/dance routine which sometimes has elements of what I have seen as cheerleading. This is done as a competitive sport in it's own right.

Confused? You will be...

DtG