What it means
Footy is the everyday Aussie catch-all for football, but the exact code depends on where you are. In Victoria it usually means AFL. In New South Wales and Queensland, plenty of people mean rugby league, and sometimes rugby union. If you want to dodge a pointless pub scrap, ask which footy first.
Usage examples
"You keen for the footy on Saturday arvo? Which footy, ya drongo? AFL at the G. Too easy, I’ll grab snags and a slab."
"We're having a few mates round for the footy and a couple of tinnies on Saturday."
"He'd rather watch the footy than do anything remotely useful on a weekend."
"You watching the footy tonight or just parked on the couch for the vibes? Depends who's playing, mate."
"Mum said dinner's at six, so if the footy's on before that I'm eating in front of the telly."
Where it comes from
Footy is a straightforward diminutive of football, built with the playful -y ending that turns up all through Australian and British English. It’s been around for ages in informal speech and stuck hard in Australia, where it became the default everyday label for whatever football code your local patch cares about.
