: Teams that have lost all their land can "get back on the map" by defeating an opponent that currently holds territory.

In political commentary, an imperialism football map is sometimes a showing how European colonial powers (British, French, German, Belgian, etc.) carved up Africa, Asia, and the Americas — and then superimposed association football (soccer) as a cultural legacy.

The term "imperialism" is loaded. It evokes the Opium Wars, the Boer War, and the partition of India. Critics argue that using such a term to describe a children’s game played by millionaires is tone-deaf, trivializing the genuine suffering caused by colonial expansion.