The beginnings of soccer
The origin of
football / soccer can be found in every corner of geography and history. The
Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Ancient Greek, Persian, Viking, and many more
played a ball game long before our era. The Chinese played 'football' games date as far back as 3000 years ago. The Ancient
Greeks and the Roman used football games to
sharpen warriors for battle. In south and Central America
a game called 'Tlatchi' once flourished.
But it was in
England
that soccer really begin to take shape. It all started
in 1863 in England,
when two football association (association football and rugby football) split
off on their different course. Therefore, the first Football Association was
founded in England.
On October
1963, eleven London
clubs and schools sent their representatives to the Freemason's Tavern. These
representatives were intent on clarifying the muddle by establishing a set of
fundamental rules, acceptable to all parties, to govern the matches played
amongst them. This meeting marked the birth of The Football Association. The
eternal dispute concerning shin-kicking, tripping and carrying the ball was
discussed thoroughly at this and consecutive meetings until eventually on 8
December the die-hard exponents of the Rugby
style took their final leave. They were in the minority anyway. They wanted no
part in a game that forbade tripping, shin-kicking and carrying the ball. A
stage had been reached where the ideals were no longer compatible. On 8
December 1863, football and rugby finally split. Their separation became
totally irreconcilable six years hence when a provision was included in the
football rules forbidding any handling of the ball (not only carrying it).
Only eight
years after its foundation, The Football Association already had 50 member
clubs. The first football competition in the world was started in the same year
- the FA Cup, which preceded the League Championship by 17 years.
International
matches were being staged in Great Britain
before football had hardly been heard of in Europe.
The first was played in 1872 and was contested by England
and Scotland.
This sudden boom of organized football accompanied by staggering crowds of
spectators brought with it certain problems with which other countries were not
confronted until much later on. Professionalism was one of them. The first
moves in this direction came in 1879, when Darwin, a small Lancashire club,
twice managed to draw against the supposedly invincible Old Etonians
in the FA Cup, before the famous team of London
amateurs finally scraped through to win at the third attempt. Two Darwin players, the Scots
John Love and Fergus Suter, are reported as being the
first players ever to receive remuneration for their football talent. This
practice grew rapidly and the Football Association found itself obliged to legalise professionalism as early as 1885. This development
predated the formation of any national association outside of Great Britain (namely, in the Netherlands and Denmark) by exactly four years.
After the
English Football Association, the next oldest are the Scottish FA (1873), the
FA of Wales (1875) and the Irish FA (1880). Strictly speaking, at the time of
the first international match, England
had no other partner association against which to play. When Scotland played England
in Glasgow on
30 November 1872, the Scottish FA did not even exist - it was not founded for
another three months. The team England
played that day was actually the oldest Scottish club team, Queen's Park.
The spread of
football outside of England,
mainly due to the British influence abroad, started slow, but it soon gathered
momentum and spread rapidly to all parts of the world. The next countries to
form football associations after the Netherlands and Denmark in 1889 were New
Zealand (1891), Argentina (1893), Chile (1895), Switzerland, Belgium (1895),
Italy (1898), Germany, Uruguay (both in 1900), Hungary (1901) and Finland
(1907). When FIFA
was founded in Paris in May 1904 it had seven
founder members: France, Belgium, Denmark,
the Netherlands, Spain (represented by the Madrid FC), Sweden and Switzerland. The German Football
Federation cabled its intention to join on the same day.
This
international football community grew steadily, although it sometimes met with
obstacles and setbacks. In 1912, 21 national associations were already
affiliated to the Fdration Internationale
de Football Association (FIFA). By 1925, the number had increased to 36, in
1930 - the year of the first World Cup - it was 41, in 1938, 51 and in 1950,
after the interval caused by the Second World War, the number had reached 73.
At present, after the 2000 Ordinary FIFA Congress, FIFA has 204 members in
every part of the world.
Now existing leagues
UEFA Champions
League, European Champion Clubs Cup - this are the two main club competitions
organized by the UEFA (Union of European Football Association)
LFP - Professional
Football League, commonly known as the Primera Divisin
EPL -
English Premier League
MLS - Major
League Soccer
