Originating from traditional football games, modern football was born in the 19th century in English schools. It has now become a universal sport played in villages, streets and stadiums all over the world. Today, it is the game which attracts the largest number of fans in the world.   

There is not the slightest doubt about the universal nature of football: 193 national associations are members of FIFA (International Federation of Football Association), that is more than the number of countries belonging to the United Nations, and 250 million men and women play football throughout the world. And this figure only takes into account registered football players, in other words those with permits to play in competitions. 
 

Hundreds of thousands of others, big or small, young or old, with no distinction of class or race, divide themselves into two teams with the sole aim of having fun by sending the ball into the opposite side's goal. Football, as the embodiment of a need to communicate and to share, is one of the greatest concepts of humanity! 

The origin of football can be found in every corner of geography and history. The Chinese and Japanese, the Egyptians and Assyrians, played a ball game long before our era. Later, the Roman harpastum, using a bull's bladder, reached the shores of the Atlantic when the legions conquered Gaul. This game led the way to soule, considered together with the Florentine calcio which emerged during the Renaissance, as the real ancestor of football. 

In just over one century, football has become a worldwide passion, a kind of universal reference. One of the rare elements, perhaps the only one, of a global culture understood by all, transgressing the boundary lines between different regions, nations and generations. The reason why football is so fascinating is that by its very structure it symbolizes an ideal model of life in a group; it tells us something important about the common destiny of mankind.   

Wherever one comes from, whatever one is, wherever one lives, football is the favorite sport. It is the game which wins the most widespread approval, the one which often initiates a person to the world of sports. Men have probably kicked a ball with their feet from the moment that they became homo erectus! But it is true that a sport does not really exist unless it is practiced according to precise rules. So there is no doubt that it is the English who invented modern football.  *  * Images provided by EDS through its relationship with Allsport Photography © 1997 ALLSPORT USA/[Mike Powell] ALL RIGHTS RESERVED