Football sports

Football is the name generally given to the worldwide sport played professionally as "Association Football". It is played on a field where possession of a ball is competed for by two teams of eleven people. The aim of the game is to score goals by placing the ball in the goal of the opposing team. There are eleven players on each team. The governing body of the professional rules is FIFA, the International Federation of Football Asociations. The game is know also known as Soccer, a francophone derivation from "Association" Football. This version of the game was the first to be profesionalised and is the most widely played across the world. The ultimate competition being the World Cup held every four years.

Rugby Football was derived from Football at the public school in Rugby, UK, when legend has it, a boy, during a game of football picked up the ball and ran to the other end of the field with it. This version uses a more elliptical ball and is divided into Rugby League and Rugby Union. Each use different numbers of players and slightly different rules but the major differnce between these and Football is that point can be scored by placing the ball at each end of the pitch or over the crossbar.

American football was created in the nineteenth century and was derived from Rugby. Originally played at the college level, professional teams were created in 1920. This version uses a smaller ball and is rarely played outside the USA. Despite the fact that apart from place kicking, the foot is almost never used in the sport, Americans use the term football, and insist on the use of the term soccer to refer to what the rest of the world calls 'football'. This causes tremendous conflict, as football is played almost exclusively with only the foot. [1]

See also

• National Football League
• History of Rugby
• History of American football