The main dish for today is FOOTBALL

  Why Football? I know everything about it… come on man I want something else Well let’s start with the renowned ones and then we dig further into the depths of the abyss. Below I am gonna write the history of Football, some fun and interesting facts and ofc course what I believe of its future. ( I won’t bother you with the rules most of you know about)

HISTORY OF FOOTBALL 

Ancient History 

Before I start typing I read many articles to gather information but yet I am not aware if there are 100% true or not so don’t ‘’kill me’’ if I am wrong just say so.  

Football is here to stay and has a long story behind it. Its early history starts in Ancient Greece (haha again Greece has a piece of the pie) but not in a form similar to the one we know. Greeks used a ball that was made of shreds of leather with hair inside and the game is to be very rough and violent (especially in Sparta, you can guess why!). 

Basically, it was a teamwork game with 2 opposite teams of 12-14 members with a white line between the teams and another one behind them. The objective was that the teams while changing and passing the ball to each other, to force the enemy team behind the back line. Teams could stop the other team by any way possible ;) 

This game was called episkyros (επίσκυρος) or phaininda (φαινίνδα) that by etymology meant a deceiving or cheat game. (How cool is that?). 

 Episkyros is recognized as an early form of football by FIFA 

Later Romans took it renamed it to harpastum {Greek Harpaston (Αρπαστόν) meaning carried away} changing it and transforming it a bit. 

Around this time in a different place, the great China and specifically Han dynasty had its own form of the game named Cuzu (蹴鞠), Tsu' Chu, or Zuqiu it is the first game to be recognized by FIFA with regular rule. Ofc Japan must have its own version known as kemari that is own to be played in the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto. 

Middle ages 

It is considered that English people kept football alive at this time. There were no rules and infinitive number of them could take place and because of that many fights occurred. The situation was out of hand so football banned but by the end of 14 century football was so popular that become a part of English nation. 

Football and its modern beginning

  At 1863 in England the Football Association formed in order to create some common rules for everyone as in every town different set of rules applied. Football and this rules spread out from England to Europe and more specifically to France, Sweden, Netherlands and Spain and so FIFA was created.

 Yes man but why in some countries it is known as soccer? 

Because my dear friends, in order to avoid problems relevant to association football and rugby they named the first one as ‘’assoccer’’ and the second one ‘’rugger’’  

 Interesting and fun facts 

· Football players run an average of 9.65 kms during every game.

 · The first black football player was Arthur Wharton in the 1800s. 

· In 1964, a referee’s call during a football match in Peru caused a riot that killed over 300 people.

 · Neil Armstrong originally wanted to take a football to the moon - but NASA deemed it to be un-American. 

· The ball used in professional football has remained exactly the same size and shape for 120 years - 28inches in circumference.

 · More than 80% of the world’s footballs are manufactured in Pakistan. 

If you want to see more of those facts go here 

Future of football

 I really don’t want to start with numbers but football (soccer) is the most profitable sport I think, it is played mostly everywhere and huge amount of money spent for players and new fields. Behind many teams are rich and powerful people and corporations that support them for their own reasons. Way too much money is spent to football betting and the companies earn profits beyond imagination. Moreover, the fan base is crowed and fanatic as @@@ (don’t misunderstand and think as threat equally fanaticism and love for the team) with people caring more about if their team loses a much or if you say something bad about it than the political and economic state of their country ( to yell at fields and be toxic I know it’s a way to forget about your problems and feel like you belong somewhere but that’s not a healthy solution).  

I don’t say that everyone is like this, don’t get me wrong. In crisis we all face, football business is still in a very good spot without facing serious problems (I think it still face growth but I am not 100% sure about it) so I believe in the future it will continue to grow and be profitable.

 If you want to learn more about football in a more economic perspective read this 2012 study commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate-General Education and Culture

 I hope you learned one thing or two about football’s history while reading this, I know I haven’t provided any info about the rules but I think most of you are familiar and I want to analyze the rules of unknown sports than known. Anything you want to add or say please do so, thank you very much for reading it, it took quite some time to write it.

 1 2  3 4 5 6 7 8