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International competitions

The major international competition in football is the World Cup, organised by FIFA. This competition takes place over a four-year period. More than 190 national teams compete in qualifying tournaments within the scope of continental confederations for a place in the finals. The finals tournament, which is held every four years, involves 32 national teams competing over a four-week period. The most recent tournament, the 2010 FIFA World Cup, was held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July.

There has been a football tournament at every Summer Olympic Games since 1900, except at the 1932 games in Los Angeles. Before the inception of the World Cup, the Olympics (especially during the 1920s) had the same status as the World Cup. Originally, the event was for amateurs only, however, since the 1984 Summer Olympics professional players have been permitted, albeit with certain restrictions which prevent countries from fielding their strongest sides. Currently, the Olympic men's tournament is played at Under-23 level. In the past the Olympics have allowed a restricted number of over-age players per team; but that practice ceased in the 2008 Olympics. The Olympic competition is not generally considered to carry the same international significance and prestige as the World Cup. A women's tournament was added in 1996; in contrast to the men's event, full international sides without age restrictions play the women’s Olympic tournament. It thus carries international prestige considered comparable to that of the FIFA Women's World Cup.

After the World Cup, the most important international football competitions are the continental championships, which are organised by each continental confederation and contested between national teams. These are the European Championship (UEFA), the Copa América (CONMEBOL), African Cup of Nations (CAF), the Asian Cup (AFC), the CONCACAF Gold Cup (CONCACAF) and the OFC Nations Cup (OFC). The FIFA Confederations Cup is contested by the winners of all 6 continental championships, the current FIFA World Cup champions and the country which is hosting the Confederations Cup. This is generally regarded as a warm up tournament for the upcoming FIFA World Cup and does not carry the same prestige as the World Cup itself. The most prestigious competitions in club football are the respective continental championships, which are generally contested between national champions, for example the UEFA Champions League in Europe and the Copa Libertadores de América in South America. The winners of each continental competition contest the FIFA Club World Cup.

Consolidation

Due to the quantity of national existing associations, from beginning and especially in the half of the 20th century there were begun to create suborganizations affiliated to the FIFA with the aim to organize the football in the different regions of the planet.
 The organizations of football of North America, the North American Football Confederation, and of Central America and the Carib, the Central American Federation and of the Carib of Football, they gave origin to the Federation of Football of North, Central America and the Carib, more known  Concacaf, after fusing in 1961.
 More young woman of the federations is the correspondent to Oceania: the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

 Regional championships
Selections

The continent that earlier initiated his regional tilt was South America. During 1910 the Glass Centenary Revolution of May, of friendly character, it would turn into the most ancient South American tilt of the history. The same one was disputed in Argentina and the local selection obtained the title. The tilt served as predecessor of the future South American Championship of Selections of the South American Federation of Football, who would be disputed by the first time in 1916, also in Argentina, though this time would stay in hands of Uruguay.
The Asian continent would celebrate his own official tilt two years after the foundation of the Asian Federation of Football (AFC), in 1956. The first edition of the Asian Glass of 1956 was realized in Hong Kong by the participation of 7 of 12 associations affiliated in the moment and stayed in hands of the selection of South Korea. Also during the year 1950 there would be disputed the first tilts of the regional associations of the AFC.
 The African Glass of Nations had his first edition in the year 1957. The first tilt organized by the African Federation of Football possessed the participation of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan (South Africa had been discredited by the apartheid). The glass disputed in Sudan stayed in hands of the Egyptian selection.
During the year 1970 also the first regional tilts originated inside Africa.
 After the creation of the UEFA in 1954, the accomplishment of an European tilt had to wait until 1960, when there was realized the first edition of the Glass of Europa's Nations, though it is necessary to emphasize that the process clasificatorio began two years before, in 1958. The final phase of the tilt was disputed in France, partly thanks to Henri Delaunay's work. In the final the Soviet Union achieved the title before Yugoslavia after the extension.
 
Clubs
The creation of the federations, which already had motivated the creation of the different regional tilts for selections, did the own thing to level of clubs.
After the foundation of the European federation, the UEFA, his leaders were more interested parties in creating a tilt to level of selections, leaving of side the idea of one of clubs. It was for this that the initiative for the creation of the Champions' Glass of Europa in 1955 did not correspond to the UEFA, but to a French diary: L'Équipe. Known from 1992 as League of Champions of the UEFA, it is nowadays the most important tilt of European football to level of clubs. Europa's Reglass was classifying, principally, the winners of the competitions of Glass of every country. From his creation up to the accomplishment of the UEFA cup it was the most important tilt after the League of Champions. The UEFA cup, succesor of the Glass of Fairs, would stay as the most important second tilt.

The Concacaf would begin the dispute of his Champions' Glass in 1962, tilt that is kept at present as the only one to level of clubs organized by the Concacaf. In 1991 the football of The Federation would have his first secondary competition: the Reglass of the Concacaf. The tilt enjoyed few popularity and scarcely there was disputed the half of his editions. In 2001 there would be disputed the first and only edition of the Glass of Giants, I turn where the equipments of agreement were taking part to spectators' levels in his leagues.

 The first edition of the League of Champions of the CAF, the most important tilt of football of the federation of Africa, the CAF, would give beginning in the year 1964. From 1975 the Winners' African Glass of Glass would receive only the winners of the competitions of Glass.

Intercontinental and World glass of Clubs

The idea of a championship that was defining the Champion of the World to level of clubs goes back a year 1887. On August 13 they faced in the Hibernian Park of Edinburgh the champion of the Glass of Scotland, the Hibernian Football Club, and the Preston North End Football Club, considered the best club Englishman of the epoch: the meeting finished with victory of the Scotch equipment for 2 1 and saying party was known as the Championship of the World. In the middle of the 20th century there were disputed two friendly tilts that also received the name of Championships of the World: the Glass Rio de Janeiro, disputed from 1951, and the Small Glass of the World of Clubs, disputed by the first time in 1952. Equipments presented both tilts both of South America and of Europe.
 In 2000 there was disputed the first edition of the World Cup of Clubs of the FIFA.

The first steps of the football

Foundations of a competition

The laws laid down by the FA had an immediate effect, with Sheffield and Nottingham playing an annual fixture on the FA code among others. Over the next two years Chesterfield and Stoke joined the code, which meant that the codified form was no longer an exclusive sport of public schools. By this time teams had settled into 11 players each, and the game was played with round balls. It previously stated that all players in front of the ball were offside, eliminating passing of the ball forwards, much like in rugby today. The rule was relaxed. A Sheffield against London game in 1866 had allowed the FA to observe how the rules were affecting the game; subsequently handling of the ball was abolished except for one player on each team, the goalkeeper. A red tape was added between the two goalposts to indicate the top of the goal, and a national competition was proposed. 1867 saw the introduction of the first competition and oldest existing trophy in soccer, the Youdan Cup.

First FA Cup

The Royal Engineers team who reached the first FA Cup finalOn 20 July 1871, C. W. Alcock, a gentleman from Sunderland and a former pupil of Harrow School proposed that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the [Football] Association",the idea that gave birth to the competition. At the first FA Cup in 1872, Wanderers and Royal Engineers met in the final in front of 2,000 paying spectators. Despite the Royal Engineers being the heavy favourites, one of their players sustained a broken collar bone early on and since substitutions had not yet been introduced, the Engineers played a man down for the rest of the match which they eventually lost 1-0.

Later competitions saw the 'Gentleman' or Southerners dominate with Old Etonians, Wanderers, Royal Engineers and Oxford University who amongst them took 19 titles. Queens Park withdrew in the semi-finals of the 1873 cup (which due to the format being played that year meant that all the challengers to Wanderers' trophy played a competition for the right to throw down the gauntlet and play the holders, hence the full name FA Challenge Cup) because they had trouble raising travel expenses to pay for the constant trips to England, this directly led to the formation of the Scottish FA. However despite this, Queens Park continued to participate in the FA Cup, reaching the final twice, before the Scottish FA banned Scottish clubs from entering in 1887.
First league

Main article: The Football League#History
In 1888, William McGregor a gentleman from Perthshire and a director of Aston Villa F.C was the main force between meetings held in London and Manchester involving 12 football clubs, with an eye to a league competition. These 12 clubs would later become the Football League's 12 founder members. The meetings were held in London on 22 March 1888, the main concern was that an early exit in the knockout format of the FA cup could leave clubs with no matches for almost a year, not only could they suffer heavy financial losses, but fans didn't often stick around for that long without a game, when other teams were playing. Matters were finalised on the 17 April in Manchester.

McGregor had voted against the name The Football League, as he was concerned that it would be associated with the Irish Land League. But this name still won by a majority vote and was selected. The competition guaranteed fixtures and members for all of its member clubs. The clubs were split equally among North and Midlands teams. It excluded Southern teams, who were still strictly amateur.

A rival English league called the Football Alliance operated from 1889 to 1892. In 1892 it was decided to formally merge the two leagues, and so the Football League Second Division was formed, consisting mostly of Football Alliance clubs. The existing League clubs, plus three of the strongest Alliance clubs, comprised the Football League First Division.

First International

See also: England v Scotland (1870) England v Scotland (1871) England v Scotland (1872)

The first international game was played in Scotland on 30 November 1872. Charles Alcock, who was elected to secretary of the FA at the age of 28, devised the idea of an international competition, inaugurating an annual Scotland-England fixture. In 1870 and 1871 he placed advertisements in Edinburgh and Glasgow newspapers, requesting players for an international between the two countries. The only response that he received stated: "devotees of the "association" rules will find no foemen worthy of their steel in Scotland"[3] For this reason the 1870 and 1871 matches were composed entirely of Scots living in England. Notably, however, Smith of the Queen's Park football club took part in most of the 1870 and 1871 international matches. As early as 1870, Alcock was adamant that these matches were open to every Scotsman [Alcock's italics] whether his lines were cast North or South of the Tweed and that if in the face of the invitations publicly given through the columns of leading journals of Scotland the representative eleven consisted chiefly of Anglo-Scotians ... the fault lies on the heads of the players of the north, not on the management who sought the services of all alike impartially. To call the team London Scotchmen contributes nothing. The match was, as announced, to all intents and purposes between England and Scotland".

The first non-European international was contested on the 28 November 1885, at Newark, New Jersey, between the USA and Canada, the Canadians winning 1-0.


 From amateurism to professionalism

See also: British Football Association and Amateur Football Association
When football was gaining popularity during the 1870s and 1880s professionals were banned in England and Scotland. Then in the 1880s, soon after Wanderers disbanded, in the north of England, teams started hiring players known as 'professors of football', who were often professionals from Scotland. This was the first time professionalism got into football. The clubs in working class areas, especially in Northern England and Scotland wanted professional football in order to afford playing football besides working. Several clubs were accused of employing professionals.
During the summer of 1885, there was pressure put on the Football Association to accept professionalism in English football, culminating in a special meeting on 20 July, after which it was announced that it was "in the interests of Association Football, to legalise the employment of professional football players, but only under certain restrictions". Clubs were allowed to pay players provided that they had either been born or had lived for two years within a six-mile radius of the ground. There were also rules preventing professional players playing for more than one club in a season, without obtaining special permission, and all professional players had to be registered with the F.A.


In 1934 the Swedish club Malmö FF was relegated from the top division after it had been discovered that they paid their players, something that was not allowed in Swedish football at the time.

Wartime footbal

Main article: Association football during World War I
Main article: Association football during World War II
Between 1915 and 1919 competitive association football was suspended in England. Many footballers signed up to fight in the war and as a result many teams were depleted, and fielded guest players instead. The Football League and FA Cup were suspended and in their place regional league competitions were set up; appearances in these tournaments do not count in players' official records.

The Beginning of modern football

The modern football beginning in the english school.
While football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, in English school are widely credited with four key achievements in the creation of modern football codes. First of all, the evidence suggests that they were important in taking football away from its "mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport. Second, many early descriptions of football and references to it were recorded by people who had studied at these schools. Third, it was teachers, students and former students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable matches to be played between schools.

The earliest evidence that games resembling football were being played at English public schools — mainly attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes.Richard Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools, has been described as "the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football". Among his contributions are the earliest evidence of organised team football. Mulcaster's writings refer to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster's "footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of traditional football.In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called Vocabula. Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern English as "keeping goal" and makes an allusion to passing the ball ("strike it here"). There is a reference to "get hold of the ball", suggesting that some handling was allowed. It is clear that the tackles allowed included the charging and holding of opposing players ("drive that man back").A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Games, written in about 1660. Willughby, is the first to describe goals and a distinct playing field.He also mentions tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal"); scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win") and the way teams were selected ("the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the first to describe a "law" of football: "they must not strike [an opponent's leg] higher than the ball".
English public schools were the first to codify football games. In particular, they devised the first offside rules, during the late 18th century.During the early 19th century, most working class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve hours a day. They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force. Feast day football played on the streets was in decline. Public school boys, who enjoyed some freedom from work, became the inventors of organised football games with formal codes of rules.
Football was adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted its own rules, which varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Two schools of thought developed regarding rules. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham), while others preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted.The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played.

The boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. However, it was difficult for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules. The solution to this problem was usually that the match be divided into two halves, one half played by the rules of the host "home" school, and the other half by the visiting "away" school.
The modern rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc.

When this rues evolved burn the modern football

Football origins

Rome



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) or "φαινίνδα" (phaininda), 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.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.

China


Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC. It describes a practice known as cuju (蹴鞠, literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty , cuju games were standardized and rules were established. Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively. By the Chinese Tang Dynasty , the feather-stuffed ball was replaced by an air-filled ball and cuju games had become professionalized, with many players making a living playing cuju. Also, two different types of goal posts emerged: One was made by setting up posts with a net between them and the other consisted of just one goal post in the middle of the field.

Japan


The Japanese version of cuju is kemari (蹴鞠), and was developed during the Asuka period. 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 (much like keepie uppie). The game appears to have died out sometime before the mid-19th century. It was revived in 1903 and is now played at a number of festivals.

Other references

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 (Eskimo) people in Greenland.
The Māori in New Zealand played a game called Ki-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.

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.