political football
A contentious political issue or problem that is often debated or discussed, but that remains unresolved; an issue or problem which is avoided by authorities and handed off to others.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Healthcare is often treated like a political football.”
“Local taxes become a political football every time there is an election.”
“The city council refused to fix the road, turning the project into a political football between the mayor and the governor.”
“The school board keeps using the new budget as a political football instead of actually buying the books that the students need for their classes.”
“For decades, the reform of the national pension system has remained a political football, tossed between opposing parties while the underlying economic crisis continues to worsen.”
The idiom emerges as an allusion to a ball being kicked back and forth between opposing teams, illustrating the process of a policy or issue being treated as a tool for partisan advantage rather than a matter for resolution. It describes the state of a topic being tossed between factions, usually to the detriment of the topic itself.
Last updated August 10, 2026