Football • Soccer • Futbol
Football, soccer, the beautiful game, the world game.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the first recorded use of the word 'football' in English was in 1486, while the contemporary history of the world's favourite game spans more than 100 years.
It all began in 1863 in England when rugby football and association football branched off and The Football Association was formed - becoming the sport's first governing body and creating the foundation for the way the sport is played today.
Played by approximately 250 million footballers worldwide and with an estimated fan base of 3.5 billion, association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is the world's most popular sport.
In South Africa, the domestic first division is the Premier Soccer League and both in conversation and the media, the term ‘soccer’ is used. The stadium used for the final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup was known as Soccer City. Despite this, the country's national association (established in 1991) is called the South African Football Association or SAFA and ‘football’ is mostly used in official contexts.
Historians have found the word ‘soccer’ in fact originated in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century.
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