History of soccer

             The origin of soccer goes back as far as 3000 years. The earliest form of soccer was played in China by the military to increase there performance in battle . Another early form of soccer “Tiachi” was performed in South and Central America.  Soccer began to take shape in its modern form in England.  The first football association was established in England in 1863, when rugby and football split up forming their own associations. Soccer in other parts of the world is referred as Football.

             The Football association had to have fundamental rules of the game for every team to follow the same rules.  Therefore in October 1863, soccer representatives had a meeting to set up the fundamental rules of the game. In December 1863, rugby and football finally came apart when in the football rules it was forbidden any handling of the ball.  Eight years after its establishment, The Football association had 50 member clubs.

             The first football competition in the world started in 1863 and was named the FA cup.  International games were performed in Great Britain and the first was in 1872 (England vs. Scotland).  Although soccer at that time wasn’t played in professional level, a club in England started to pay there players to beat a supposedly invincible team named Old Estonians in the FA cup. The first players that received money for their talent were two Darwin players, John Love and Fergus Suter.  The Football association had to legalize professionalism in 1885 because many players were being paid for playing.

             After the English Football association, the next oldest associations are the Scottish, the FA of Wales, and the Irish association.  The spread of soccer outside England was slow but then it grew and spread al over the world.  The next countries to form a football association were Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Uruguay, Hungary and Finland.  Associations formed an international federation that had seven founder members in Paris in May 1904.  The Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) had 21 national associations by 1921 and grew over the years. At present the federation has 204 associations spread in every part of the world.
            

              The most competitive tournament in football is the World Cup. The first World Cup was played in 1930 and the federation at that time had 41 members. The World Cup took place in Uruguay from 13 July to 30 July 1930 and all matches were played in the capital, Montevideo. The international football federation selected Uruguay as host nation because Uruguay was celebrating its first constitution, and its national team had won the Olympics in 1928.  The first World Cup had 13 teams divided into 4 groups. A lot of national teams preferred not to participate because they had trouble traveling to South America.

If you want to know more about the history of soccer click links below:

http://expertfootball.com/history/
http://www.wsoccer.com/soccer-history/
http://library.thinkquest.org/11431/history.htm
http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-soccer.htm
http://www.riverdellsoccer.net/justforkids/soccerhistory/index_E.html