adidas and UEFA today announced the extension of their long-term partnership for the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League as well as the UEFA Super Cup and UEFA Women’s Champions League. The deal will see adidas extend its long-term partnership for each competition until 2018, further strengthening its position as the world’s leading football brand.

Pavel Nedvěd

Each team consists of a maximum of eleven players (excluding substitutes), one of whom must be the goalkeeper. Competition rules may state a minimum number of players required to constitute a team; this is usually seven. Goalkeepers are the only players allowed to play the ball with their hands or arms, but they are only allowed to do so within the penalty area in front of their own goal. Though there are a variety of positions in which the outfield (non-goalkeeper) players are strategically placed by a manager or coach, these positions are not defined or required by the Laws.

The basic equipment players are required to wear includes a shirt, shorts, socks, footwear and adequate shin guards. Players are forbidden to wear or use anything that is dangerous to themselves or another player (including jewellery or watches). The goalkeeper must wear clothing that is easily distinguishable from that worn by the other players and the match officials.

A number of players may be replaced by substitutes during the course of the game. The maximum number of substitutions permitted in most competitive international and domestic league games is three, though the number permitted may be varied in other leagues or in friendly matches. Common reasons for a substitution include injury, tiredness, ineffectiveness, a tactical switch, or as a defensive ploy to use up a little time at the end of a finely poised game. In standard adult matches, a player who has been substituted may not take further part in the match.

A game is officiated 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 5), and whose decisions are final. The referee is assisted by two assistant referees. In many high-level games there is also a fourth official, who assists the referee and may replace another official should the need arise.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

There are seventeen Laws in the official Laws of the Game. The same Laws are designed to apply to all levels of football, although certain modifications for groups such as juniors, seniors or women are permitted. The Laws are often framed in broad terms, which allow flexibility in their application depending on the nature of the game. In addition to the seventeen Laws, numerous IFAB decisions and other directives contribute to the regulation of football. The Laws can be found on the official FIFA website.^[1]

References

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Map showing the popularity of association football around the world. Countries where association football is the most popular sport are coloured green, while countries where it is not are coloured red. The various shades of green and red indicate the number of players per 1,000 inhabitants.

Games revolving around the kicking of a ball have been played in many countries through history. The earliest documented version is the Chinese game Cuju, mentioned in military manuals from the time of the Qin Dynasty (255–206 BCE).[3] Other ancient ball games include kemari in Japan and the Roman game Harpastum. Various forms of mob football were played in mediæval Europe, though rules varied greatly by both period and location.

The rules of football as they are codified today are based on mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played at the public schools 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 schools, but they were not universally adopted. During the 1850s, many 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 pupils from Harrow) in 1857, which led to formation of a Sheffield FA in 1867. In 1862, John Charles Thring of Uppingham School also devised an influential set of rules.^[1]

These efforts contributed to the formation of The Football Association (The FA) in 1863 which first met on the morning of 26 October 1863 at the Freemason’s Tavern in Great Queen Street, London[5]. The only school to be represented on this occasion was Charterhouse. The Freemason’s Tavern was the setting for five more meetings between October and December, which eventually produced the first comprehensive set of rules. At the final meeting, the first FA treasurer, the representative from Blackheath, withdrew his club from the FA over the removal of two draft rules at the previous meeting, the first which allowed for the running with the ball in hand and the second, obstructing such 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 but 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 fourteen rules of the game. Despite this, the Sheffield FA played by its own rules until the 1870s.

Today the laws of the game are determined by the International Football Association Board (IFAB). The Board was formed in 1886[6] after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the Irish Football Association. The world’s oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which has been contested by English teams since 1872. England is also home to the world’s first football league, which was founded in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor[7]. The original format contained 12 clubs from the Midlands and the North of England. The Fédération Internationale de 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. [8] The growing popularity of the international game led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to the IFAB in 1913. The board currently consists of four representatives from FIFA and one representative from each of the four British associations.

Today, football is played at a professional level all over the world, and millions of people regularly go to football stadia to follow their favourite team,^[2] whilst billions more watch the game avidly on television.^[3] A very large number of people also play football at an amateur level. According to a survey conducted by FIFA and published in the spring of 2001, over 240 million people regularly play football in more than 200 countries in every part of the world.^[4] Its simple rules and minimal equipment requirements have no doubt aided its spread and growth in popularity.

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; it is therefore often claimed to be the most popular sport in the world. ESPN has spread the claim that the Côte d’Ivoire national football team helped secure a truce to the nation’s civil war in 2005. By contrast, however, football is widely considered to be the final proximate cause in the Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when a Red Star Belgrade-at-Dinamo Zagreb match devolved into rioting in March 1990.^[5]

References

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A goalkeeper dives to stop the ball from entering his goal.

Football is played in accordance with a set of rules, known as the Laws of the Game. The game is played using a single round ball (the football), and two teams of eleven players each compete to get the ball into the other team’s goal, thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the conclusion of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals then the game is a draw.

The primary rule is that the players (other than the goalkeepers) may not intentionally touch the ball with their hands or arms during play (though they do use their hands during a throw-in restart). Although players mainly use their feet to move the ball around, they may use any part of their bodies other than their hands or arms.

In typical game play, players attempt to propel the ball towards their opponents’ goal through individual control of the ball, such as by dribbling (running with the ball close to their feet), passing the ball to a team-mate, and by taking shots at the goal, which is guarded by the opposing goalkeeper. Opposing players may try to regain control of the ball by intercepting a pass or through tackling the opponent who controls the ball; however, physical contact between opponents is restricted. Football is generally a free-flowing game, with the ball in play at all times except when it has left the field of play, or when play has been stopped by the referee. After a stoppage, play recommences with a specified restart.

At a professional level, most matches produce only a few goals. For example, during the English 2005-06 season of the FA Premier League, an average of 2.48 goals per match were scored.^[1]

The Laws of the Game do not specify any player positions other than goalkeeper, but a number of player specialisations have evolved. Broadly, these include three main categories: strikers, or forwards, whose main task is to score goals; defenders, who specialise in preventing their opponents from scoring; and midfielders, who dispossess the opposition and keep possession of the ball in order to pass it to the forwards. These positions are further differentiated by which side of the field the player spends most time in. For example, there are central defenders, and left and right midfielders. While players may spend most of the game in a specific position, there are few restrictions on player movement, and players can switch positions at any time. The layout of the players on the pitch is called the team’s formation, and defining the team’s formation and tactics is usually the prerogative of the team’s manager.

References

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Need an webmaster? Click HERE

The striker (wearing the red shirt) is past the defence (in the white shirts) and is about to take a shot at the goal. The goalkeeper will attempt to stop the ball from entering the goal.

Association football, soccer, or simply football, is a team sport played between two teams each consisting of 11 players and is the most popular sport in the world. It is a ball game played on a rectangular grass field (or occasionally on an artificial pitch) with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by manoeuvring the ball into the opposing goal. The predominant feature of the sport is that players other than the goalkeepers may not use their hands or arms to propel the ball in general play. The winner is the team that has scored more goals at the end of the match.

The modern game developed in England following the formation of the Football Association, whose 1863 set of rules created the foundations for the way the sport is played today. Football is governed internationally by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The most prestigious international football competition is the World Cup, which is also the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world.^[1]

References

Further reading

• Stefan Szymanski and Tim Kuypers (1999), Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football, Viking

Links

• Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
• Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
• Confederation of African Football (CAF)
• Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF)
• Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)
• South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL)
• Oceania Football Confederation (OFC)
• The Current Laws of the Game (LOTG)
• The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF)
• Association of Football Statisticians (AFS)
• Economics of Football – Literature Review (PDF)

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Need an webmaster? Click HERE