While thinking about sports, I am reminded of the example of topological equivalence showing how a coffee mug is a donut. Many sports are essentially football. Some, such as hockey, ice hockey, gaelic football, american football, rugby, basketball, lacrosse, polo, water polo, etc, are obviously so. The playing conditions, the number of players, the scoring, the shape of the threshold (goal, basket, goal line) and various other details differ, but in each case, there is an object that needs to sent beyond a certain threshold by a team to score points.

In volleyball, this threshold is the ground itself. It need only be touched by the ball. Unlike the above-mentioned footballs, volleyball is turn-based. Minor difference. Volleyball is also football. A turn-based football.

In tennis, after one bounce, the ground becomes the threshold. Tennis, too, is football; drop in the number of players notwithstanding. Similarly, table tennis is football (the table and the ground are the threshold after one bounce). Squash, racquet ball, badminton, etc, too.

Golf is also football. It’s still turn-based. But now the number of teams has grown. Still, we can agree that golf is a multi-team turn-based football. (‘Multi’ meaning more than two.)

Is kabaddi football? There is no ball-like object. Arguably, the raider is simultaneously a player and an object that needs to get past threshold after fulfilling a certain condition. To those complaining about the condition, I would point out that football too has conditions like offside, handball, etc. that would render the object crossing the threshold not creditworthy. So the fact that the raider must contact members of the defending team before returning in order to score is hardly exceptional. Thus, kabaddi is football. (A turn-based player-is-object football.)

What’s stopping wrestling from being football then? Nothing. We have already established the floor/ground as a valid threshold. Wrestling = football. And so are judo, sumo wrestling, etc. (Real-time player-is-object football.)

Since we have established that the player can be the object to get past a threshold, every racing sport is football. Cycling, swimming, horse racing, F1… these are simply multi-team real-time football.

If we broaden ’threshold’ to be both mental and physical, boxing becomes football too.

I should stop before I realize cricket and baseball are simply asymmetric football.