Who Invented Soccer
There is no clear answer to the question of who invented soccer. The game probably had its origins in China, at least according to the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), soccer’s governing body. In truth soccer is only called soccer by the United States and Canada. Everywhere else around the world the sport is named football, and it also said to be the most popular sport in the world with more than 300 million regular fans.
In trying to find out who invented soccer, I’m going give you a lesson in the history of soccer.
If you define soccer as simply a game of kicking a ball into a net, you can probably find original traces of the game as far back as the China in the third and fourth centuries before Christ. During the Han Dynasty there is evidence of the Chinese kicking a leather ball through a small opening into net. They called the game Tsu’ Chu.
The Japanese and the Greeks had similar versions of the game 500-600 years later, but the origins of the game of soccer as it is known today began in England in the 1800s. All of the many, varied versions of the game were refined into two that still exist today--association football and rugby football. Soccer, as we know it, is built upon a historical foundation of what was usually a philosophy of “anything goes,” with matches with few rules that usually ended in violence. Hitting, kicking, and carrying the ball were all part of the game at this time.
This topsy-turvy history finally led in 1868 to a meeting in London of eleven different clubs and schools to see if an agreement could be made concerning rules. An organization named the Football Association was established. Six months later supporters of rugby left the Association after a long-standing battle concerning shin-kicking and carrying the ball could not be amicably resolved.
After the split-up, the history of soccer grew quickly in England and the first tournament, the Football Association Cup was held in 1872. After that the popularity of the sport spread quickly to neighboring Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Soccer’s first expansion beyond the countries now known as the United Kingdom didn’t happen until 1889 when Denmark and the Netherlands became involved. In 1904 FIFA was founded, and since then participation in soccer has grown so steadily that in 2007 there were 208 countries in the organization. The Laws of the Game as they are today were first written in 1937-38 and they were last revised in 1997.
Although soccer is popular throughout the world, in the United States it still does not have the appeal at the national level of the sports of American football or baseball. Still, over the last decade grassroots support for the sport has been growing, more young players have grown up with after-school soccer practice, and the advent of U.S. professional soccer in 1996 has made the sport even more appealing. The governing body for soccer in the United States is the U.S. Soccer Federation. It has been in existence since 1913.
Much of the growth of women’s soccer in the last ten years in the U.S. can be traced back to 1999, when for the first time the Women’s World Cup matches were carried on national television and over 40 million viewers watched the U.S. win the Championship.
U.S. soccer players may not be the household names they are in Europe but there is no question that soccer is now more popular in the U.S. than it has ever been before.
And now you know the answer to “Who Invented Soccer?”