FIFA, the International Federation of Football Associations, is the body responsible for setting football rules. In 1863, the London Football Association formulated the first football rules. Although the Football Association was founded in 1863, different parts of the UK continue to use other game rules.
It was then that the rules of the game began to take shape, although there are reports that football matches were played as early as 1581 in schools in England. In the 12th century, football-like matches were played on the lawns and streets of England. This early form of football was also much rougher and more violent than the modern game. An essential feature of football’s predecessors was that football-like matches involved many people and were played in large urban areas (a similar game had been played in Florence since the 16th century, where it was called Calcio).
Before the First World War, despite many teams and players, football was still considered a minor sport. When the First World War broke out, football was played and watched in Britain by people of all classes, professional teams were the standard, and big business mixed with the sport in every possible way. However, outside of the British Isles, football professionalism was virtually non-existent, and football was managed, played and mostly watched only by the elites, with some instances of middle-class involvement. At the end of the 19th century, there were only a few national football teams; In England and Scotland, the first active teams played against each other in the 1870s.
Greece, Rome and some Central American countries also claim to have started playing football, but England turned football, the game we know today. According to the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), more than 240 million people worldwide play football regularly. Football is played in more than 200 countries and has spread worldwide, with more than 200 million people playing the sport in an organised fashion. Founded in 1904 to ensure the unity of national football associations, FIFA, with 209 members, rivals the United Nations and is arguably the most prestigious sports organisation globally.
Today, 211 national associations are FIFA’s, football’s world governing body. In 1934, 32 countries took part in the World Cup qualifiers, and now their number has exceeded 200, which indicates that soccer balls are a truly global phenomenon. Today, football or association football is the most popular sport globally, so popular that much of Europe practically shuts down during the World Cup.
The true origin of football is difficult to determine, but football, otherwise known as soccer, may be related to the Greeks and Romans. Although it is widely believed that the word “football” originated from the action of the foot hitting the ball, there is an alternative explanation that football initially referred to medieval European games played on foot rather than on horseback. When it comes to the origins of football, it is essential to distinguish between the game we know today and any sport that used the feet to kick the ball.
