June 19, 2022

football, also called association football or soccer, game in which two teams of 11 players, using any part of their bodies except their hands and arms, try to maneuver the ball into the opposing team’s goal. Only the goalkeeper is permitted to handle the ball and may do so only within the penalty area surrounding the goal. The team that scores more goals wins.

Carlos Alberto Torres
Carlos Alberto Torres
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Key People: Megan Rapinoe Lionel Messi Cristiano Ronaldo Didier Drogba Landon Donovan
Related Topics: Africa Cup of Nations World Cup Asian Cup European Championship Women’s World Cup
Football is the world’s most popular ball game in numbers of participants and spectators. Simple in its principal rules and essential equipment, the sport can be played almost anywhere, from official football playing fields (pitches) to gymnasiums, streets, school playgrounds, parks, or beaches. Football’s governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), estimated that at the turn of the 21st century there were approximately 250 million football players and over 1.3 billion people “interested” in football; in 2010 a combined television audience of more than 26 billion watched football’s premier tournament, the quadrennial month-long World Cup finals.

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BRITANNICA QUIZ
Sports Fun Facts Quiz
What sport’s equipment was found in the tomb of an Egyptian child buried about 3200 BCE? What sport originated because businessmen found the new game of basketball to be too difficult? Take this quiz to find out how many fun facts you know about the history and evolution of sports, some of them familiar and others definitely not.
For a history of the origins of football sport, see football.