The history of football

People have kicked balls for thousands of years. In ancient China, a game called cuju involved kicking a ball through an opening in a net, and it was played by soldiers and at the imperial court. FIFA recognises cuju as an early form of football.

In Japan, kemari was a courtly game of keeping a ball in the air, and Mesoamerican peoples played a ritual ball game with a heavy rubber ball, using their hips. These games developed independently and are not direct ancestors of modern football.

In medieval Europe, especially England, villages played mob football on holidays such as Shrove Tuesday. Teams could involve hundreds of people, the goals might be kilometres apart, and there were few rules. Injuries were common and property was often damaged.

English kings and local authorities repeatedly tried to ban the game, and several traditional versions still survive, such as the Royal Shrovetide Football match played each year in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

In the nineteenth century, English public schools such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby developed their own versions of football with different rules, some allowing players to carry the ball and others only to kick it. When former pupils met at university or in clubs, they needed common rules.

In 1863 representatives of clubs met in a London tavern and founded the Football Association, which published a set of laws that banned carrying the ball and hacking at opponents' shins. Clubs that preferred handling formed the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The name soccer comes from an abbreviation of association.

• The FA Cup, first played in 1871 to 1872, is the oldest national football competition in the world.
• The first official international match was played between Scotland and England in Glasgow in 1872, ending 0 to 0.
• Football became hugely popular among industrial workers, who gained free Saturday afternoons.
• Professionalism was legalised in England in 1885, and the Football League began in 1888.
• Factories, churches and railway companies founded many famous clubs, including those that became Manchester United and Arsenal.

British sailors, engineers, teachers and merchants spread football across the world in the late nineteenth century. It took root rapidly in South America, especially in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and across Europe.

FIFA, the international governing body, was founded in Paris in 1904. The first FIFA World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 and won by the hosts. Since then, Brazil has won the tournament five times, more than any other nation. The women's World Cup began in 1991 and has grown rapidly in popularity.

Today football is played and watched by billions of people, and the World Cup final is one of the most watched broadcasts on Earth. Top clubs are global businesses, fuelled by television rights, sponsorship and international fan bases.

The sport continues to change. Video assistant referees were introduced at the 2018 World Cup, women's professional leagues are expanding, and debates continue over the influence of money, the treatment of workers building stadiums, racism in stadiums and the governance of FIFA.