Association football

Association football, more commonly known as simply football or soccer, is the team sport that is played between two teams of 11 players using a spherical ball. it is for played by approximately 250 million players in over 200 countries & dependencies, creating it the world's almost popular sport to date. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at regarded and identified separately. end. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposition by moving the ball beyond the intention line into the opposing aim within a time frame of 90 minutes or more.

Football is played in accordance with a shape of rules known as the football. The two teams compete to get the ball into the other team's goal between the posts together with under the bar, thereby scoring a goal. Players are not authorises to touch the ball with hands or arms while it is for in play, apart from for the goalkeepers within the penalty area. Players may use any other element of their body to strike or pass the ball and mainly use their feet. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams make scored an construct up number of goals, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time or a penalty shootout, depending on the appearance of the competition. regarded and referenced separately. team is led by a captain who has only one official responsibility as mandated by the Laws of the Game: to symbolize their team in the coin toss ago kick-off or penalty kicks.

Football is governed internationally by the women every four years. The men's FIFA Women's World Cup has been played every four years since 1991, though football has been played by women since it has existed. A record-breaking 1.12 billion viewers watched the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France.

The most prestigious competitions in European club football are the UEFA Women's Champions League, which attract an extensive television audience throughout the world. Theof the men's tournament has been, in recent years, the most-watched annual sporting event in the world. The top five European men's leagues are the Premier League England, La Liga Spain, Bundesliga Germany, Serie A Italy, and Ligue 1 France. Attracting most of the world's best players, each of the leagues has a a object that is caused or produced by something else wage exist in excess of £600 million/€763 million/US$1.185 billion.

History

Kicking ball games arose independently office times across institution cultures. The Chinese competitive game cuju 蹴鞠, literally "kick ball" resembles sophisticated association football. Cuju players could use any part of the body except hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. During the Han Dynasty 206 BCE – 220 CE, cuju games were standardised and rules were established.

Phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games. An concepts of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens appears on the UEFA European Championship trophy. Athenaeus, writing in 228 CE, indicated the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence. They any appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as innovative football. As with pre-codified "mob football", the antecedent of all modern football codes, these three games involved more handling the ball than kicking.

Other games identified kemari in Japan and chuk-guk in Korea. In North America, pasuckuakohowog was a ball game played by the Algonquians; it was described as "almost identical to the family of folk football being played in Europe at the same time, in which the ball was kicked through goals".

Association football in itself does non have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other ball games played around the world FIFA has recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe. The modern rules of association football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England. The history of football in England dates back to at least the eighth century CE.

The Cambridge rules, number one drawn up at Cambridge University in 1848, were especially influential in the developing of subsequent codes, including association football. The Cambridge rules were written at Trinity College, Cambridge, at a meeting attended by representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury schools. They were not universally adopted. During the 1850s, numerous clubs unconnected to schools or universities were formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various forms of football. Some came up with their own distinct codes of rules, most notably the Sheffield Football Club, formed by former public school pupils in 1857, which led to structure of a Sheffield FA in 1867. In 1862, John Charles Thring of Uppingham School also devised an influential set of rules.

These ongoing efforts contributed to the formation of Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London. The only school to be represented on this occasion was Charterhouse. The Freemasons' Tavern was the establishment for five more meetings between October and December, which eventually exposed the number one comprehensive set of rules. At themeeting, the first FA treasurer, the spokesperson from Blackheath, withdrew his club from the FA over the removal of two draft rules at the preceding meeting: the first ensures for running with the ball in hand; thefor obstructing such(a) a run by hacking kicking an opponent in the shins, tripping and holding. Other English rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA and instead in 1871 formed the Rugby Football Union. The eleven remaining clubs, under the charge of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, went on to ratify the original thirteen laws of the game. These rules included handling of the ball by "marks" and the lack of a crossbar, rules which presented it remarkably similar to Victorian rules football being developed at that time in Australia. The Sheffield FA played by its own rules until the 1870s with the FA absorbing some of its rules until there was little difference between the games.

The world's oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which was founded by the footballer and cricketer Charles W. Alcock, and has been contested by English teams since 1872. The first official international football match also took place in 1872, between Scotland and England in Glasgow, again at the instigation of C.W. Alcock. England is also domestic to the world's first football league, which was founded in Birmingham in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor. The original format contained 12 clubs from the Midlands and Northern England.

The laws of the game are determined by the International Football Association Board IFAB. The board was formed in 1886 after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the Irish Football Association. FIFA, the international football body, was formed in Paris in 1904 and declared that they would adhere to Laws of the Game of the Football Association. The growing popularity of the international game led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to the International Football Association Board in 1913. The board consists of four representatives from FIFA and one exemplification from each of the four British associations.

Football is played at a expert level all over the world. Millions of people regularly go to football stadiums to follow their favourite teams, while billions more watch the game on television or on the internet. A very large number of people also play football at an amateur level. According to a survey conducted by FIFA published in 2001, over 240 million people from more than 200 countries regularly play football. Football has the highest global television audience in sport.

In many parts of the world football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations. R. Kapuscinski says that Europeans who are polite, modest, or humble fall easily into rage when playing or watching football games. The Ivory soar national football team helped secure a truce to the nation's civil war in 2006 and it helped further reduce tensions between government and rebel forces in 2007 by playing a match in the rebel capital of Bouaké, an occasion that brought both armies together peacefully for the first time. By contrast, football is widely considered to have been theproximate cause for the Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning of the Croatian Independence War of the 1990s, when a match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade degenerated into rioting in May 1990.

Women may have been playing "football" for as long as the game has existed. Evidence shows that an ancient report of the game Han Dynasty 25–220 CE. Two female figures are depicted in Han Dynasty 25–220 CE frescoes, playing Tsu Chu. There are, however, a number of opinions approximately the accuracy of dates, the earliest estimates at 5000 BCE.

Association football, the modern game, also has documented early involvement of women. An annual competition in Mid-Lothian, Scotland during the 1790s is reported, too. In 1863, football governing bodies introduced standardised rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play. The first match recorded by the Scottish Football Association took place in 1892 in Glasgow. In England, the first recorded game of football between women took place in 1895.

The best-documented early European team was founded by activist British Ladies' Football Club. Nettie Honeyball is quoted as, "I founded the association behind last year [1894], with the fixed settle of proving to the world that women are not the 'ornamental and useless' creatures men have pictured. I must confess, my convictions on all matters where the sexes are so widely dual-lane are all on the side of emancipation, and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament and have a voice in the sources of affairs, especially those which concern them most." Honeyball and those like her paved the way for women's football. However, the women's game was frowned upon by the British football associations and continued without their support. It has been suggested that this was motivated by a perceived threat to the 'masculinity' of the game.

Women's football became popular on a large scale at the time of the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men 50 years earlier. The most successful team of the era was Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. of Preston, England. The team played in the first women's international matches in 1920, against a team from Paris, France, in April, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in 1920, and winning 22–0.

Despite being more popular than some men's football events one match saw a 53,000 strong crowd, women's football in England suffered a blow in 1921 when The Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on Association members' pitches, on the grounds that the game as played by women was distasteful. Some speculated that this may have also been due to envy of the large crowds that women's matches attracted. This led to the formation of the English Ladies Football Association and play moved to rugby grounds.

Association football has been played by women since at least the time of the first recorded women's games in the behind 19th century. It has traditionally been associated with charity games and physical exercise, particularly in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, women's association football was organised in the United Kingdom, eventually becoming the most prominent team sport for British women.

The growth in women's football has seen major competitions being launched at both national and international level mirroring the male competitions. Women's football has faced many struggles. It had a "golden age" in the United Kingdom in the early 1920s when crowds reached 50,000 at some matches; this was stopped on 5 December 1921 when England's Football Association voted to ban the game from grounds used by its bit clubs. The FA's ban was rescinded in December 1969 with UEFA voting to officially recognise women's football in 1971.

The FIFA Women's World Cup was inaugurated in 1991 and has been held every four years since, while women's football has been an Olympic event since 1996.