History of football world's most beloved sport

Football (or soccer as the game is called in

some parts of the world) has a long history.

Football in its current form arose in England in

the middle of the 19th century. But alternative

versions of the game existed much earlier and

are a part of the football history.

Early history and the precursors of football

The first known examples of a team game

involving a ball, which was made out of a rock,

occurred in old Mesoamerican cultures for over

3,000 years ago. According to the sources, the

ball would symbolize the sun and the captain of

the losing team would be sacrificed to the gods.

The first known ball game which also involved

kicking took place In China in the 3rd and 2nd

century BC under the name Cuju . Cuju was

played with a round ball on an area of a square.

It later spread to Japan and was practiced under

ceremonial forms.

Other earlier variety of ball games had been

known from Ancient Greece. The ball was made

by shreds of leather filled with hair (the first

documents of balls filled with air are from the

7th century). In the Ancient Rome, games with

balls were not included in the entertainment on

the big arenas, but could occur in exercises in

the military. It was the Roman culture that would

bring football to the British island (Britannica). It

is, however, uncertain in which degree the British

people were influenced by this variety and in

which degree they had developed their own

variants.

The most admitted story tells that the game was

developed in England in the 12th century. In this

century, games that resembled football were

played on meadows and roads in England.

Besides from kicks, the game involved also

punches of the ball with the fist. This early form

of football was also much more rough and

violent than the modern way of playing. An

important feature of the forerunners to football

was that the games involved plenty of people

and took place over large areas in towns (an

equivalent was played in Florence from the 16th

century where it was called Calcio). The rampage

of these games would cause damage on the

town and sometimes death. These would be

among the reasons for the proclamations against

the game that finally was forbidden for several

centuries. But the football-like games would

return to the streets of London in the 17th

century. It would be forbidden again in 1835, but

at this stage the game had been established in

the public schools.

It took, however, long time until the features of

today’s football had been taken into practice. For

a long time there was no clear distinction

between football and rugby. There were also

many variations concerning the size of the ball,

the number of players and the length of a match.

The game was often played in schools and two

of the predominant schools were Rugby and

Eton. At Rugby the rules included the possibility

to take up the ball with the hands and the game

we today know as rugby has its origin from here.

At Eton on the other hand the ball was played

exclusively with the feet and this game can be

seen as a close predecessor to the modern

football. The game in Rugby was called “the

running game” while the game in Eton was called

“the dribbling game”.

An attempt to create proper rules for the game

was done at a meeting in Cambridge in 1848,

but a final solution to all questions of rules was

not achieved. Another important event in the

history of football came about in 1863 in London

when the first Football association was formed

in England. It was decided that carrying the ball

with the hands wasn't allowed. The meeting

also resulted in a standardization of the size and

weight of the ball. A consequence of the London

meeting was that the game was divided into two

codes: association football and rugby.

The game would, however, continue to develop

for a long time and there was still much

flexibility concerning the rules. For one thing, the

number of players on the pitch could vary.

Neither were uniforms used to distinguish the

appearance of the teams. It was also common

with players wearing caps – the header was yet

to be a part of the game yet. Further reading:

The development of football rules.

Another important difference at this stage could

be noticed between English and Scottish teams.

Whereas the English teams preferred to run

forward with the ball in a more rugby fashion, the  Scottish chose to pass the ball between their

players. It would be the Scottish approach that

soon became predominant.

The sport was at first an entertainment for the

British working class. Unprecedented amounts of spectators, up to 30,000, would see the big

matches in the late 19th century. The game

would soon expand by British peoples that

traveled to other parts of the world. Especially in

South America and India would the interest in

football become big.

The first football clubs Football clubs have existed since the 15th century, but unorganized and without official status. It is therefore hard to decide which the

first football club was. Some historians suggest

that it was the Foot-Ball Club formed 1824 in

Edinburgh. Early clubs were often formed by

former school students and the first of this kind

was formed in Sheffield in 1855. The oldest

among professional football clubs is the English

club Notts County that was formed in 1862 and

still exists today.

An important step for the emergence of teams

was the industrialization that led to larger groups of people meeting at places such as factories,

pubs and churches. Football teams were

established in the larger cities and the new

railroads could bring them to other cities.

In the beginning, football was dominated by

public school teams, but later, teams consisting

by workers would make up the majority. Another

change was successively taking place when

some clubs became willing to pay the best

players to join their team. This would be the

start of a long period of transition, not without

friction, in which the game would develop to a

professional level.

The motivation behind paying players was not

only to win more matches. In the 1880s the

interest in the game has moved ahead to a level

that tickets were sold to the matches. And

finally, in 1885 professional football was

legalized and three years later the Football

League was established. During the first season,

12 clubs joined the league, but soon more clubs

became interested and the competition would

consequently expand into more divisions.

For a long time, the British teams would be

dominant. After some decades, clubs from

Prague, Budapest and Sienna would be the

primarily contenders to the British dominance.

As with many things in history, women were for a long time excluded from participating in games.

It was not before the late 19th century that

women started to play football.

The following year a match between two

national teams was played for the first time. The

match that involved England and Scotland ended

0-0 and was followed by 4,000 people at

Hamilton Crescent (the picture shows

illustrations from this occasion).

Twelve years later, in 1883, the first international

tournament took place and included four national

teams: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Football was for a long time a British

phenomenon, but it gradually spread to other

European countries. The first game that took

place outside Europe occurred in Argentina in

1867, but it was foreign British workers who were

involved and not Argentinean citizens.

The Fédération Internationale de Football

Association (FIFA) was founded in 1904 and a

foundation act was signed by representatives

from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands,

Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. England and the

other British countries did not join FIFA from the

start, they had invented the game and saw no

reason to subordinate to an association. Still,

they joined in the following year, but would not

partake in the World Cup until 1950.

Domestic leagues occurred in many countries.

The first was, as already mentioned, the English

Football League which was established in 1888.

The leagues would by time expand by more

divisions, which were based on team

performance.

In 1908 would football for the first time be

included as an official sport in the Olympic

Games. Until the first FIFA World Cup was

played in 1930, the Olympic Games football

tournament would rank as the most prestigious

on a national level. Women's football was not

added until 1996.

As in many other sports the white male was

predominant for a long time. In football black

players started being present relatively early and

in comparison with, for example, tennis, football

has traditionally been known as a sport with a

mix of black and white players.

In Britain, Andrew Watson is known to be the

first black player, and he played in the Scottish

club Queen’s Park in the 1880s.

A game of passion

Few other sports

show examples of

passion to that

extent as football.

The arenas are

flocked by shearing people; and in front of

television even more are watching carefully and

sometimes with great enthusiasm.

Already in the late 19th century, Goodison Park

was built in England in purpose of hosting

football games. In 1894, the FA Cup final

between Notts County and Bolton Wanderers was

attended by 37,000 people. A milestone in the

development of football stadiums is the

construction of Maracanã Stadium.

 In the year of 1950 the imposing stadium in Rio de Janeiro

was ready for almost 200,000 people. No other

sport has seen stadiums of that capacity built to

host its games.

There have been two different traditions of fan

culture on the arenas: the British and the South

American. The British fans adopted the tradition

of singing, the repertoire was inspired from pub

and working songs among other areas. The South

Americans on the other hand would adopt the

carnival style which included firecrackers and

fireworks, and also the modern phenomena of

Bengali fires. Fans in other countries have later

adopted a mixture of these traditions.

The great modern competitions

No other sport event besides the Summer

Olympic Games can today measure itself with

the FIFA World Cup . The first edition of the FIFA

World Cup was played in 1930 in Uruguay and

has since then returned every fourth year (with

two exceptions due to the Second World War). In

1991 the first World Cup for women was held in

China and has since then also returned every

fourth year.

Today the biggest global tournament for clubs is

the Champions League (played since 1992), the

former European Cup (1955–1991).

In the late 19th century, only a few national

football teams existed; England and Scotland

had the first active teams that played games

against each other in the 1870s. Today there are

211 national associations included in the

Fédération Internationale de Football Association

(FIFA), the world governing body of the sport.

Another proof of the globalization could be seen

in the increase of nations participating in the

World Cup qualifiers: from 32 in 1934 to over

200 in 2014.

The world regions have been divided into six

confederations:

1 Confédération Africaine de

Football (CAF)

2 Asian Football Confederation

(AFC)

3 Union des Associations Européennes de

Football (UEFA)

4 The Confederation of North,

Central America and Caribbean Association

Football (CONCACAF)

5 Oceania Football

Confederation (OFC)

6 Confederación

Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL

In most parts of the world, football is used as

the name for the “chess of the green pitch”, the

biggest sport in the world. In the United States

and Canada, however, soccer is used instead as

a distinction from American football. A more

formal name sometimes used is association

football, but in popular speech, it is either

football or soccer. 

Pele is regarded as the best player of his time for his goal scoring prowess.He also led Brazil to glory in the World Cup🌎🏆

 Diego Maradona is remembered for his "hand of God" In the world cup final a goal that earned his national team Argentina the trophy.