Football, commonly known as association football or soccer, is a sport in which two teams of 11 players try to advance the ball into the goal of the other team by using any part of their body other than their hands and arms. Only the goalie is allowed to handle the ball, and only within the area surrounding the goal that is designated as the penalty area. The team with the most goals scored wins.
According to the number of players and spectators, football is the most watched sport in the world. The sport may be played practically everywhere, from official football playing fields (pitches) to gymnasiums, streets, school playgrounds, parks, or beaches, thanks to its basic rules and necessary equipment. A combined television audience of more than 26 billion people watched football's premier competition, the quadrennial month-long World Cup finals, in 2010. According to FIFA, there were approximately 250 million football players and over 1.3 billion "interested" in the sport at the turn of the twenty-first century.
For a history of the origins of football sport, see football.
History
The early years
Britain is where modern football first emerged in the 19th century. "Folk football" games have been played in towns and villages since before the Middle Ages, according to regional customs and with the barest of rules. A history of legal restrictions against particularly violent and destructive forms of folk football combined with industrialization and urbanization, which decreased the amount of leisure time and space available to the working class, to undermine the game's status from the early 19th century onward. However, winter football matches between residence houses at public (independent) institutions like Winchester, Charterhouse, and Eton were adopted. Each school had its own set of rules; some permitted very restricted ball handling, while others did not.
Public schoolboys who entered universities found it challenging to continue playing, outside of with previous classmates, due to the disparity in rules. The University of Cambridge made an effort to regulate and codify the game's regulations as early as 1843. By 1848, most public schools had adopted these "Cambridge rules," which were then further popularized by Cambridge alums who founded football clubs. The printed football rules, which forbade carrying the ball, were created in 1863 following a series of discussions with clubs from metropolitan London and neighboring counties. As a result, the rugby "handling" game was excluded from the newly established Football Association (FA). In fact, the FA forbade the handling of the ball by anyone other than the goalkeeper by 1870.
However, the new regulations were not adopted by all clubs in Britain, particularly those in and around Sheffield. While the Sheffield Football Association, the progenitor of later county organizations, was founded in this northern English city in 1867, it was also the location of the first provincial club to join the FA. Two games were played between Sheffield and London clubs in 1866, and the following year a game between a Middlesex club and a Kent and Surrey club was played under the new set of regulations. 15 FA clubs agreed to participate a cup competition and contribute to the cost of a trophy in 1871.By 1877, 43 clubs were in competition, the associations of Great Britain had established an unified code, and the initial supremacy of the London clubs had lessened.