HISTORY

Soccer's origin is truly global, as there are sports involving teams moving a ball between goals from ancient China, Japan, the Aztecs, and from the ancient Greeks. 

In 1863 graduates from Eton, Harrow, Uppingham and Rugby, preferring a less physical game, where players dribbled the ball and did not use their hands to tackle the opposition or move the ball, founded what they called the Football Associaiton, composed of 14 footballing teams that chose to compete with an established set of game rules.  During those times a man named Charles Wreford Brown first coined the word "soccer".  Today's game evolved from 1860 to 1910 during which time many if not all the important rules were enacted.

FIFA organized it's first World Cup in 1930, an idea that was followed up based on the success of the 1924 Olympic soccer tournament.  Although the first live broadcasts were in 1954, the stimulus for International growth has been television, mainly at the 1966 World Cup in England.  This was the first major soccer event which could take advantage of communication satelites.

Taken in part from:  The United States Soccer Federation.  Soccer: The Game and the World Cup, Universe Publishing, New York, 1998.

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