First a little introduction.  Football is the world’s most popular game.  Today, it is played in parks, clubs, schools, fields and streets throughout the world.  Other than the professionals (people being paid for playing football), millions of people in the world today play football, and names like Pele, Beckenbauer and Maradona have already become more famous than the names of many presidents and kings.

       The modern game of football was first played in Britain in the later part of the 19th century.  It soon became popular in other countries and is now played and watched in most countries of the world.  The Danes were the first to play football after the British.  The first great football competition between countries was the Olympic competition in 1912.  However, the players in the Olympic competition were only amateurs (they were not paid to play football).  The need for a professional world competition increased as football became more and more popular and more people started playing football as paid professionals.  Thus, with this in mind, the World Cup Competition was started, and the first competition was held in Uruguay in 1930.

       Actually, the game of football has already been played for hundreds of years, only differently from the way it is played today.  London schoolboys were playing football as early as 1175, some eight centuries ago.   In 1314, the English King Edward II, ordered that all football games be stopped.  Other kings and queens after Edward also agreed that it was a very bad and dangerous game.  In the 17th century, another sort of game like football was also played in Florence in Italy.  Today, apart from soccer, American football and rugby also share the same roots.

       However, this early form of football was not as it is played today.  There were few rules, and as there weren’t limitations on the number of players in each team, hundreds of players often played together.  Goalposts were not used, and a goal could be anything from a brick wall to a gate.  Players used to pick it up and run it with their hands.  Such a game could last for hours and cause broken limbs and other injuries, so its no wonder the royalty thought it a bad and dangerous game.

       In the 19th century, the game of football slowly became less dangerous and more popular.  The modern game of football was started in 1862 by a man named J.C. Thring who played for Cambridge University.  He came up with a list of rules for football, and these rules became the first rules in modern football.  Here are some of them:
1. You may only use the hand to stop the ball and put it in front of your foot.
2. You may only kick the ball, not another player.
3. When a player kicks off the ball, all the other players must stand at least six steps away from him.

Mr Thring sent this list of rules to all the towns and schools in England where football was played. Some of the schools agreed to abide by these rules, but others did not agree. One such school was Rugby, and that is why today people still play a game called Rugby.

       In this site you will be able to trace the development of the World Cup for Soccer from its beginnings to its present day.  We have classified them by decade and will be focusing mainly on developments to the game, significant events, and the good and bad influences it brings to society.
Enjoy yourself.