Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football generally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football (known as soccer in Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States, and sometimes in Ireland and New Zealand); Australian rules football; Gaelic football; gridiron football (specifically American football, arena football, or Canadian football); International rules football; rugby league football; and rugby union football.[1] These various forms of football share, to varying degrees, common origins and are known as "football codes". There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world.[2][3][4] Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century, itself an outgrowth of medieval football.[5][6] The expansion and cultural power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside the directly controlled empire.[7] By the end of the 19th century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage.[8] In 1888, the Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football associations. During the 20th century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world.[9]

Common elements

The action of kicking in (clockwise from upper left) association, gridiron, rugby, and Australian football

The various codes of football share certain common elements and can be grouped into two main classes of football: carrying codes like American football, Canadian football, Australian football, rugby union and rugby league, where the ball is moved about the field while being held in the hands or passed by hand, and kicking codes such as association football and Gaelic football, where the ball is moved primarily with the feet, and where handling is strictly limited.[10] Common rules among the sports include:[11]

In all codes, common skills include passing, tackling, evasion of tackles, catching and kicking.[10] In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside, and players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a crossbar between the goalposts.

Etymology

Main article: Football (word)

There are conflicting explanations of the origin of the word "football". It is widely assumed that the word "football" (or the phrase "foot ball") refers to the action of the foot kicking a ball.[13] There is an alternative explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe that were played on foot.[14] There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation.

Early history

Ancient games

See also: Episkyros and Cuju

Ancient China

Emperor Taizu of Song playing cuju (Chinese football) with his prime minister Zhao Pu (趙普) and other ministers, by Yuan dynasty artist Qian Xuan (1235–1305)

The Chinese competitive game cuju is an early type of ball game where feet were used, in some aspects resembling modern association football. It was possibly played around the Han dynasty and early Qin dynasty, based on an attestation in a military manual from around the second to third centuries BC.[15][16][17] In one version, gameplay consisted of players passing the ball between teammates without allowing it to touch the ground (much like keepie uppie). In its competitive version, two teams had to pass the ball without it falling, before kicking the ball through a circular hole placed in the middle of the pitch. Unlike association football, the two teams did not interact with each other but instead stayed on opposite sides of the pitch.[18] Cuju has been cited by FIFA as the earliest form of football.[4] The Japanese version of cuju is kemari (蹴鞠), and was developed during the Asuka period.[19] This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In kemari, several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground. The Silk Road facilitated the transmission of cuju, especially the game popular in the Tang dynasty, the period when the inflatable ball was invented and replaced the stuffed ball.[20]

Ancient Greece and Rome

An ancient Roman tombstone of a boy with a Harpastum ball from Tilurium (modern Sinj, Croatia)

The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman game harpastum is believed to have been adapted from a Greek team game known as ἐπίσκυρος (episkyros)[21][22] or φαινίνδα (phaininda),[23] which is mentioned by a Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388–311 BC) and later referred to by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 AD). These games appear to have resembled rugby football.[24][25][26][27][28] The Roman politician Cicero (106–43 BC) describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games already knew the air-filled ball, the follis.[29][30] Episkyros is described as an early form of football by FIFA.[31]

Native Americans

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit in Greenland.[32] There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman.[33] Pasuckuakohowog, a game similar to modern-day association football played amongst Amerindians, was also reported as early as the 17th century.[34] Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls by indigenous peoples are also well-documented as existing since before this time,[35] but these had more similarities to basketball or volleyball, and no links have been found between such games and modern football sports. Northeastern American Indians, especially the Iroquois Confederation, played a game which made use of net racquets to throw and catch a small ball; however, although it is a ball-goal foot game, lacrosse (as its modern descendant is called) is likewise not usually classed as a form of "football".[36]

Oceania

On the Australian continent several tribes of indigenous people played kicking and catching games with stuffed balls which have been generalised by historians as Marn Grook (Djab Wurrung for "game ball"). The earliest historical account is an anecdote from the 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, in which a man called Richard Thomas is quoted as saying, in about 1841 in Victoria, Australia, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." Some historians have theorised that Marn Grook was one of the origins of Australian rules football. The Māori in New Zealand played a game called Kī-o-rahi consisting of teams of seven players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target.[37][38] These games and others may well go far back into antiquity. However, the main sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.[39]