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football
What is football?
Football, also called association football or soccer, is a game involving two teams of 11 players who try to maneuver the ball into the other team’s goal without using their hands or arms. The team that scores more goals wins. Football is the world’s most popular ball game in numbers of participants and spectators.
What is the origin of football?
Modern football originated in Britain in the 19th century. Though “folk football” had been played since medieval times with varying rules, the game began to be standardized when it was taken up as a winter game at public schools. TheFootball Association, formed in 1863, codified the rules of the game and hosted the first cup competition between regional football clubs in Britain.
How many people play football?
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, estimated that at the turn of the 21st century there were approximately 250 million football players worldwide.
What is football’s premier tournament?
TheWorld Cup is football’s premier tournament. It is a quadrennial tournament and is likely the most popular sporting event in the world, drawing billions of television viewers every tournament.
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football, game in which two teams of 11 players, using any part of their bodies except their hands and arms, try to maneuver the ball into the opposing team’s goal. Only the goalkeeper is permitted to handle the ball and may do so only within the penalty area surrounding the goal. The team that scores more goals wins.
Football is the world’s most popular ball game in numbers of participants and spectators. Simple in its principal rules and essential equipment, the sport can be played almost anywhere, from official football playing fields (pitches) to gymnasiums, streets, school playgrounds, parks, or beaches. Football’s governing body, theFédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), estimated that at the turn of the 21st century there were approximately 250 million football players and over 1.3 billion people “interested” in football; in 2010 a combined television audience of more than 26 billion watched football’s premier tournament, the quadrennial monthlongWorld Cup finals.
For a history of the origins of football sport,seefootball.
History
The early years
Modern football originated in Britain in the 19th century. Since beforemedieval times, “folk football” games had been played in towns and villages according to local customs and with a minimum of rules.Industrialization andurbanization, which reduced the amount of leisure time and space available to the working class, combined with a history of legal prohibitions against particularly violent and destructive forms of folk football to undermine the game’s status from the early 19th century onward. However, football was taken up as a winter game between residence houses at public (independent) schools such asWinchester College,Charterhouse, andEton College. Each school had its own rules; some allowed limited handling of the ball and others did not. The variance in rules made it difficult for public schoolboys entering university to continue playing except with former schoolmates. As early as 1843 an attempt to standardize andcodify the rules of play was made at theUniversity of Cambridge, whose students joined most public schools in 1848 in adopting these “Cambridge rules,” which were further spread by Cambridge graduates who formed football clubs. In 1863 a series of meetings involving clubs from metropolitanLondon and surrounding counties produced the printed rules of football, which prohibited the carrying of the ball. Thus, the “handling” game ofrugby remained outside the newly formedFootball Association (FA). Indeed, by 1870 all handling of the ball except by the goalkeeper was prohibited by the FA.
- Also called:
- association football or soccer
The new rules were not universally accepted in Britain, however; many clubs retained their own rules, especially in and aroundSheffield. Although this northern English city was the home of the firstprovincial club to join the FA, in 1867 it also gave birth to theSheffield Football Association, the forerunner of later county associations. Sheffield and London clubs played two matches against each other in 1866, and a year later a match pitting a club fromMiddlesex against one fromKent andSurrey was played under the revised rules. In 1871 15 FA clubs accepted an invitation to enter a cup competition and to contribute to the purchase of a trophy. By 1877 the associations of Great Britain had agreed upon a uniform code, 43 clubs were in competition, and the London clubs’ initial dominance had diminished.
