Association football

Association football, also called football or soccer, is a team sport where two sides of 11 players each use their feet to move an inflated ball across a pitch. The aim is to get the ball into the opponent’s rectangular goal more times than they do, thereby scoring more goals. A standard match lasts 90 minutes, split into two 45-minute halves. With roughly 250 million players across over 200 countries and territories, it is the most popular sport worldwide. The sport follows the Laws of the Game, a rulebook first issued in 1863 and overseen by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) since 1886. The ball is 68–70 cm (27–28 in) in circumference. While the ball is in play, players mainly use their feet but can also use any body part except hands or arms—common touches include the head, chest, and thighs. Only goalkeepers may use hands and arms, and only inside their own penalty area. If both teams score the same number of goals, the result may be a draw (each team gets one point) or the match may go to extra time or a penalty shoot-out, depending on the competition’s rules. Globally, association football is governed by FIFA, which oversees six continental confederations: AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, and UEFA. National associations—such as the FA in England or U.S. Soccer in the United States—manage the sport at professional and amateur levels in their own countries, organizing competitions under the Laws of the Game. The top international tournament is the FIFA World Cup; the men’s World Cup is the most-watched sporting event worldwide, ahead of the Olympic Games. In European club football, the UEFA Champions League is the most prestigious competition, drawing huge television audiences globally, and its men’s final is the most-watched annual sporting event. **Name**

Association football belongs to a family of football games that grew out of various ancient ball games. The word “association” comes from the Football Association (the FA), founded in London in 1863, which published the sport’s first rules that year. The term was created to distinguish this type of football from others popular at the time, especially rugby football. The word “soccer” comes from Oxford “-er” slang, common at the University of Oxford from about 1875, and likely borrowed from Rugby School slang. It was first spelled “assoccer” (short for “association”), later shortened to “soccer.” Early alternate spellings included “socca” and “socker.” This slang also gave “rugger” for rugby football, “fiver” and “tenner” for banknotes, and the now-rare “footer” for association football. In English-speaking regions, the sport is usually called “football” in Great Britain and most of Ulster in Northern Ireland, while it is often called “soccer” in places where other football codes dominate, such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, most of Ireland (excluding Ulster), and the United States. New Zealand is a notable exception: in the early 21st century, under the influence of international television, “football” has become more common there, despite the popularity of rugby union and rugby league. **History**

FIFA states that soccer originated in Britain around the eighth century, with no historical link to any ancient game outside Europe. The modern rules are based on mid-19th-century efforts to standardize the varied forms of football played in English public schools. **Ancient precursors**

Kicking ball games developed independently in many cultures. The Chinese game cuju (蹴鞠, “kickball”; also known as tsu chu) resembles modern association football as well as a mix of basketball and volleyball. It is the earliest kicking game with historical evidence, first recorded as an exercise in the Zhan Guo Ce, a military history from the Han dynasty. Cuju players passed the ball, avoiding letting it touch the ground, then passed it to a designated player who tried to kick it through the fengliu yan, a circular goal atop poles 10–11 metres high. During the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), cuju was standardized with established rules. The Silk Road spread cuju beyond China, especially the Tang dynasty version, when the inflatable ball was invented, replacing stuffed balls. Other East Asian games include kemari in Japan and chuk-guk in Korea, both influenced by cuju. Kemari began after 600 during the Asuka period; it was ceremonial, not competitive, involving kicking a mari (a ball of animal skin). In North America, pasuckuakohowog was a ball game played by the Algonquians, described as “almost identical to the kind of folk football being played in Europe at the same time, in which the ball was kicked through goals.”

**Medieval precursors**

In the Middle Ages, a notable game similar to modern football was calcio storico fiorentino, which began in Florence, Italy.