Around 240 million people around the world play football according FIFA.

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This game has turned into one of the most played sports in the world. The first football game was seen to be played in was at England. But the similar versions with some similar rules was also present in china(known as Cuju) and Russia.

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The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in 1904 and a foundation act was signed by representatives from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. England and the other British countries did not join FIFA from the start, they had invented the game and saw no reason to subordinate to an association. Still, they joined in the following year, but would not partake in the World Cup until 1950.

 

Domestic leagues occurred in many countries. The first was, the English Football League which was established in 1888. The leagues would by time expand by more divisions, which were based on team performance.
 

In 1908 football for the first time to be included as an official sport in the Olympic Games. Until the first FIFA World Cup was played in 1930, the Olympic Games football tournament would rank as the most prestigious on a national level. The women football was only added on 1996.

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In 1894, the FA Cup final between Notts County and Bolton Wanderers was attended by 37,000 people. A milestone in the development of football stadiums is the construction of Maracanã Stadium. In the year of 1950 the imposing stadium in Rio de Janeiro was ready for almost 200,000 people. No other sport has seen stadiums of that capacity built to host its games.

 

No other sport event besides the Summer Olympic Games can today measure itself with the FIFA World Cup. The first edition of the FIFA World Cup was played in 1930 in Uruguay and has since then returned every fourth year (with two exceptions due to the Second World War). In 1991 the first World Cup for women was held in China and has since then also returned every fourth year.

Today the biggest global tournament for clubs is the Champions League (played since 1992), the former European Cup (1955–1991).

 

Today there are 211 national associations included in the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the world governing body of the sport. Another proof of the globalization could be seen in the increase of nations participating in the World Cup qualifiers: from 32 in 1934 to over 200 in 2014.

 

Mostly football is the name used for the game but in Canada and US, soccer is preferred in order not to mix up with American Football.