Football (soccer)
The striker (in red) has run past the defender (in white) and is about to take a shot at the goal, while the goalkeeper positions himself to stop the ball
Football, sometimes known as soccer, is the most widely played and watched team sport in the world. The game is occasionally known by its official name of association football to differentiate it from other forms of football.
Football is a ball game played between two teams of eleven players, each attempting to win by scoring more goals than their opponent. A goal results when the ball passes over the goal line between the goalposts and under the crossbar. Football is played predominantly with the feet, but players may use any part of their body except their hands and arms to propel the ball. The goalkeeper is the only member of the team allowed to handle the ball in the field of play.
Football is played regularly by many millions of people in over 200 countries. Its simple rules and minimal equipment requirements have no doubt aided its spread and growth in popularity. In many parts of the world, particularly in Europe, South America and increasingly in Africa, football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations.
The name of the game
A football
Football was exported by expatriate Britons to much of the rest of the world and many of these nations adopted this common English term for the sport into their own language. This was usually done in one of two ways: either by directly importing the word itself, or by translating its constituent parts, foot and ball. Most Romance languages use the word football, albeit with a different pronunciation and occasionally a different spelling (Spanish: fÃÂútbol, Portuguese: futebol). In French, le football is often shortened to le foot, and in Quebec the word is le soccer. By way of contrast, Germanic languages usually translate the term (for example, German: FuÃÂÃÂball, Swedish: fotboll, Dutch: voetbal). Finnish (jalkapallo) and Arabic (kurat al qadam) also use translated terms. In Italy, football is called calcio, from calcare meaning 'to kick'. This is due to the game's resemblence to Calcio Fiorentino, a 17th century ceremonial Florentine court ritual, that has now been revived under the name il calcio storico ('historical kick' or 'kickball in costume').
Aside from the name of the game itself, other foreign words based on English football terms include versions in many languages of the word goal (often gol in Romance languages) and schÃÂútte (Basel) or tschuutte (Zurich), derived from the English shoot, meaning 'to play football' in German-speaking Switzerland.
The word soccer is predominantly used in English-speaking nations where other forms of football not directly descended from association football have developed, most notably Australia, Canada, and the United States. In these countries football was often included in the names of the earliest leagues and governing bodies, but as that word became increasingly associated with the domestic form of the game so soccer became more widely used. For example, the governing body of football in the US is the United States Soccer Federation. This body was originally called the US Football Association, and was formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The word soccer was added to the name in 1945, making it the US Soccer Football Association, and it did not drop the word football until 1974, when it assumed its current name.
Outside these countries the word soccer has not been commonly used and football remains by far the most common name to describe the sport, being the name officially used by both FIFA, the sport's world governing body, and the International Olympic Committee. However, the use of soccer is on the rise, perhaps due to the global influence of American culture on the English language.
See also:
- Soccer in Australia and Australian Rules football
- Soccer in Canada and Canadian football
- Soccer in the United States and American football
- Gaelic football
- Rugby football
The laws of football
The rules of football are known as the Laws of the Game and are based on efforts made in the mid-19th century to standardise the rules of the widely varying games of football played at the public schools and universities of England. The first set of rules resembling the modern game were produced at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1848, at a meeting attended by representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury, but they were far from universally adopted. A number of rival and/or revised sets of rules were subsequently proposed, most notably by the Sheffield football club (formed by former pupils from Harrow) in 1857 and the rules of JC Thring in 1862. These efforts culminated in the formation of The Football Association in 1863 which first met on the evening of 26 October 1863. Between October and December the Freemason's Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, was the setting for a series of six meetings which eventually produced the first comprehensive set of rules. At the final meeting, the representative from Blackheath withdrew his club from The FA over a rule outlawing hacking (kicking an opponent in the shins). The Blackheath club later went on to form the Rugby Football Union.
Today the laws of football are determined by the International Football Association Board (IFAB). The Board was formed in 1882 after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the Irish Football Association. The international football body FIFA was formed in Paris in 1904 and declared that they would adhere to the rules laid down by the IFAB. The growing popularity of the international game led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to the IFAB in 1913. Today the board is made up of four representatives from FIFA and one representative from each of the four British associations.
The official Laws of the Game are:
Two teams of eleven players on each side contend to get a spherical ball into the other team's goal. The side which does this the most frequently is the winner. The primary rule for this objective is that nearly all players cannot use their hands or arms in any way while on the field.
The game is presided over by a referee, who has "full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match to which he has been appointed" (Law 6), and whose decisions regarding facts connected with play are final. The Referee is assisted by two assistant referees (formerly called linesmen). In many games there is also a fourth official, who assists the referee and may replace another official should the need arise.
Each team has a goalkeeper who is allowed to handle the ball with his arms and shoulders when he is standing within the outer marked area around the home goal, which is called the penalty area (also known as the "box" or "18 yard box"). The penalty area extends 18 yards each side of the goal, and 18 yards in front of it.
The ten outfield players on either side are not allowed to touch the ball with their arms or shoulders whilst the ball is in play, but may however play it with any other part of their anatomies. The sole exception to this is when the ball is kicked out of play and a throw in results.
A number, (variable by league and nation), of players may be replaced by substitutes during the course of the game. The usual reasons for a player's replacement include injury, tiredness, ineffectiveness, a tactical switch, or to waste a little time at the end of a finely poised game.
The pitch is divided at the centre: this is the halfway line. Exactly halfway across the halfway line is the centre spot (this is where the ball commences play from). A circle is drawn around the centre spot, the centre circle which has a radius of 10 yards (9.144 m) from the centre spot.
At either end of the pitch is a goal. This is a letterbox-shaped receptacle with a net behind it whose dimensions are: 8 feet (2.44 m) in height and 24 feet (7.32 m) in width. Two boxes are marked out on the pitch in front of the goal. The smaller box, which is laid out to surround the goal at an equal distance of 6 yards (5.5 m) denotes where the goalkeeper can take goal kicks from. The outer box is known as the penalty area or the 18 yard box, and is set 18 yards (16.5 m) to each side of the goal, and 18 yards in front of it. A small semicircle is also drawn at the edge of the penalty area, the D, 10 yards (9.5m) from the penalty spot. This is an exclusion zone for all players other than the one taking the kick in the event of a penalty being awarded.
The penalty spot (or penalty mark) is immediately in the middle of and 12 yards (11 m) in front of the goal.
In each corner of the pitch a small quarter circle with a 1 yard radius is drawn where corner kicks are taken from.
A full adult football match lasts for two periods of 45 minutes; a total of 90 minutes. There is usually a 15 minute break between halves. The referee is the official timekeeper for the match, and it is part of his duties to ensure that as close to 45 minutes in each half are played: he is allowed to stop his watch if, for example, a player is injured and requires treatment. This practice is commonly (and erroneously) known as 'adding time on': a more accurate description would be that the injury time (as time over exactly 45 minutes since the half started is known) is being played to make up for time that was lost earlier in the half. Some games, particularly knockout competition matches, provide for extra time in the event of a tied result at the end of normal time: two further periods of 15 minutes are played. Unlike North American ice hockey or American professional football, these periods are not played under 'sudden death' (first team to score wins) rules. However some tournaments (including the European Championship and the World Cup) have been using the similar rules golden goal or silver goal. If the score is still tied after extra time, then some competitions allow the use of a procedure properly known as kicks from the penalty mark and colloquially as the penalty shoot-out to determine a winner. In the late 1990s, the IFAB experimented with ways of making matches more likely to end without requiring kicks from the penalty mark, as they are generally seen as an undesirable and unfair way to end a match (often by the supporters of a side who have lost thanks to them). The first was the Golden Goal: this was equivalent to North American ice hockey or American professional football overtime procedures where the first goal or points scored in extra time wins the match. However, the Golden Goal was soon criticised because it tended to produce boring extra time periods where both sides sat back, too scared of a sudden counter-attack to try any serious attacking, and waited for penalties. In response, they created the Silver Goal procedure; basically, if one side was leading at half time in extra time, then the match was terminated there. If the scores were still level, the second half of extra time was played. This was also largely seen as a failure, and at the 2004 meeting of the IFAB, they decided to scrap both the Golden Goal and the Silver Goal, and in August 2004 they will be removed from the Laws.
The major international competition in football is the World Cup organised by FIFA. The World Cup competition takes place over a two year period. Over 160 national teams compete in regional qualifying tournaments for a place in the finals. The final tournament which is held every four years, now involves 32 national teams (increased from 24 in 1998) competing over a 4 week period.
The major national competitions of the continents are:
The level of passion with which football teams are supported has from time to time caused problems, groups of fanatics have participated in disturbances and sometimes tragedies (see hooligans, Heysel Stadium disaster and Football War). As of 2004 this aspect of football seems to have passed its peak though by no means disappeared completely. Specialist police units and information sharing between regional and international police forces has made it much harder for the hooligans to organize their displays of hatred.
Football has brought many memorable moments, including:
History and development
In addition to the seventeen Laws, numerous IFAB decisions and other directives contribute to the regulation of a game of football.Object of the game
Officials
Teams
Playing field
Standard football pitch measurements (
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Duration
Events
The major club event in Europe is the Champions League, while the major club event in South America is the Copa Libertadores.Violence
Famous plays
Football around the world
See also
External links
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