How Football Conquered the World
From June 11 to July 19, the world witnessed the unfolding of one of the greatest spectacles in sports, FIFA World Cup 2026.
The most popular sporting event, which takes place every four years, has been jointly hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico for this year’s edition.
Beginning with 48 teams, it had people from all over the globe glued to their screen until its final stretch.
After exciting matches and world-class performances, Spain emerged as the champions, defeating the defending champions Argentina, in an astonishing final match at MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, on July 19, in front of a thunderous crowd and the whole planet tuned in.
Football, also called the beautiful game, remains the most popular sport in the world, with an estimated 3.5 billion fans following worldwide.
The World Cup, which is arguably the grandest stage of the sport, draws in more casual watchers and followers, inflating that number further.
While people’s amazement and excitement with the sport is undeniable, have you ever taken a moment to wonder where it all began? Behind this phenomenal sport, that grabs the whole world into its folds, lies a story of schoolyard rivalries, clashing rulebooks and a fateful meeting.
Football-like games are found to be played among civilisations since as early as the second or third century. The earliest known form of a ball game resembling football has been found in ancient China, called “Cuju,” believed to have started during the Han Dynasty.
The game involved players kicking a ball through an opening into a net. Some more such examples included “episkyros” in Greece and “harpastum” in Rome, as noted by historian Simon Inglis, who has been quoted in English Heritage. However, though these ancient games showed similarities with football, according to FIFA.com, they are not considered direct ancestors of the modern game.
According to Britannica and verified by several other sources, the actual game known and played as football today, originated and evolved independently in nineteenth-century England.
During the Victorian era, several English institutions, particularly elite colleges and public schools, such as Eton College, Harrow College, Winchester College and Rugby School, played various versions of football-like games as a structured form of exercise or as a winter game between residence houses.
Each of these schools had their own rules and codes of playing and due to these contradictions, there were several distinct variations of the game.
Many people from these institutions from those days would later meet in universities or some even formed city clubs, bringing the codes from their respective schools.
That is when these contradictions particularly came to light, as these uni students and clubs would often try to play together, encountering disputes over rules, goals, and gameplay, making a standardised competition impossible.
TheFA.com cites Ebenezer Morley, a London solicitor who formed Barnes FC in 1862, as the founding father of football, as he wrote to Bell’s Life, a popular newspaper during this time, suggesting that football should have a set of rules in the same way that the MCC had them for cricket.
On October 26, 1863, at London’s Freemasons’ Tavern, marked the official birth of football, as representatives from eleven clubs and schools met to establish a set of regulations in order to formalise the game.
As reported by Soccer interaction, supporters of playing exclusively with the feet agreed to call the new sport “football”, and to create the English Football Association (FA), while those schools in favour of allowing the use of the hands, led by the Rugby Town School, withdrew from the meeting and laid the foundations of the sport that came to be known as “Rugby”.
According to a study on the development of football, “the codification process involved compromise, consensus, and the merging of old school codes into a true national game”.
Over the years, there have been multiple revisions to these rules, making the game more dynamic, fair, and engaging. Yet, some core principles have remained virtually untouched, such as the offside rule, the kickoff from the centre spot after a goal, and switching sides at halftime, as drafted in the first set of rules.
Football eventually spread to other countries. As detailed in Global Sports Business Journal, British soldiers stationed in off-shore colonies, foreign-based expatriates, British educators at foreign educational establishments, as well as British engineers and workmen in South America, played a key role in the expansion of football through the British empire and beyond.
By the late 19th century, football clubs were already established in places as diverse as Italy, Spain, Argentina, and Brazil, where local enthusiasts quickly adopted England’s rules. The global popularity of football was further propelled by the formation of football associations in other countries, starting with the Scottish FA in 1873 and the Irish FA in 1880.
The creation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1904 enabled international competitions and the first Olympics football tournament in 1908.
Today, football is played professionally in nearly every country and has produced globally famous competitive events such as the FA Cup, UEFA Champions League and so many others. The most significant milestone for the game came in 1930, with the inaugural FIFA World Cup tournament, held in Uruguay.
This completed the sport’s transformation into the world’s prime sporting spectacle, which still remains as powerful to this day, evident by the World Cup event. Every time it comes around, it literally stops the world and captures everyone’s attention.
As the 2026 edition wrapped up, Spain lifted their second World Cup trophy, denying the undefeated Argentina their consecutive second triumph in the final, with the whole world united to watch, transcending the borders which remains the true legacy of football.
(The writer is a student at North South University Email:farzanuzzaman321@gmail.com)
