Football
Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. The most popular of these world wide is
association football (also known as soccer). The English word
"football" is also applied to American football, Australian
rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby
football (rugby union and rugby league), and related games. Each
of these codes (specific sets of rules) is to a greater or
lesser extent referred to as "football" and sometimes "footy" by
its followers.
These games involve:
a large spherical or prolate spheroid ball, which is itself
called a football.
a team scoring goals and/or points, by moving the ball to an
opposing team's end of the field and either into a goal area, or
over a line.
the goal and/or line being defended by the opposing team.
players being required to move the ball mostly by kicking and —
in some codes — carrying and/or passing the ball by hand.
goals and/or points resulting from players putting the ball
between two goalposts.
offside rules, in most codes, restricting the movement of
players.
in some codes, points are mostly scored by players carrying the
ball across the goal line.
in most codes players scoring a goal must put the ball either
under or over a crossbar between the goalposts.
players in some codes receiving a free kick after they take a
mark/make a fair catch.
Many of the modern games have their origins in England, but many
peoples around the world have played games which involved
kicking and/or carrying a ball since ancient times.
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The FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA
Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football, run by
and named after The Football Association. (See National Football
Cups, below, for similar competitions worldwide.)
The FA Cup is the oldest football competition in the world,
commencing in 1871-72. Because it involves clubs of all
standards playing against each other there is the possibility
for "giant-killers" from the lower divisions to eliminate top
clubs from the tournament, though lower division teams rarely
reach the final. A record 687 teams were accepted into the FA
Cup in 2006-2007. In comparison, the League Cup can involve only
the 92 members of the Football League (which organises the
competition) and the FA Premier League.
The name "FA Cup" usually refers to the English men's
tournament. The equivalent competition for women's teams is the
FA Women's Cup.
The current holders of the FA Cup are Liverpool F.C. who beat
West Ham United F.C. on penalty shootout after drawing in the
2006 final, on 13 May 2006. However, neither side will appear in
this year's final as both teams were beaten before the later
rounds.
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Each different code of football uses a different ball which
belong to one of two different basic shapes:
A sphere used in association football (soccer) as well as Gaelic
football;
An approximate prolate spheroid, which may be either:
those with more rounded ends used in rugby union, rugby league
and Australian rules football
the more pointed type used in American football and Canadian
football
Dimensions
The ball used in football (soccer) is called a football or
soccer ball. Law 2 of the game specifies the ball to be an
air-filled sphere with a circumference of 68–70 cm (or 27–28
inches), a weight of 410–450 g (or 14–16 ounces), inflated to a
pressure of 60–110 kPa (or 8.5–15.6 psi), and covered in leather
or "other suitable" material. [1] The weight specified for a
ball is the dry weight: older balls often became significantly
heavier in the course of a match played in wet weather. The
standard ball is a Size 5. Smaller sizes exist; Size 3 is
standard for team handball; others are used in underage games or
as novelty items.
Construction
A truncated icosahedron (left) compared to an association
football/soccer ball. Most modern footballs are stitched from 32
panels of waterproofed leather or plastic: pigskin, 12 regular
pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. The 32-panel configuration is
similar to the polyhedron known as the truncated icosahedron,
except that it is more spherical, because the faces bulge due to
the pressure of the air inside. The first 32-panel ball was
marketed by Select in the 1950s in Denmark. This configuration
became common throughout Continental Europe in the 1960s, and
was publicised worldwide by the Adidas Telstar, the official
ball of the 1970 World Cup.
Older balls were usually stitched from 18 oblong non-waterproof
leather panels, similar to the design of modern volleyballs and
Gaelic footballs, and laced to allow access to the internal air
bladder. This configuration is still common, as are more novel
ones, such as the 26-panel Mitre PRO 100T, and the 2006 FIFA
World Cup football, the 14-panel Adidas +Teamgeist (a truncated
octahedron). There are also indoor footballs, which are made of
one or two pieces of plastic. Often these have designs printed
on them to resemble a stitched leather ball.
There are only thirteen different possibilities for suitable
spherical footballs. This includes the more football of
pentagons and hexagons that we use today. It is predicted that
in 2010, a newly shaped football will be in use which will have
92 leather flaps the majority of which will be triangles and the
rest will be squares and octagons.[citation needed]
Patterns
The archetype, black pentagon/white hexagon design was intended
for maximum visibility on monochrome television sets. It is
still used for generic balls and symbolic representations of the
game. However, premium branded balls have other more elaborate
patterns. The Nike Total 90 Aerow has rings intended to aid
goalkeepers to determine the spin on the ball. "Official
replicas" of the Teamgeist have its 14-panel pattern
superimposed on a cheaper 32-panel ball. The official ball of
the UEFA Champions League, the Adidas Finale has stars on the
ball. Older balls were monochrome: originally brown; and later
white, especially for floodlit matches. Brightly-coloured balls
are used on snow-covered pitches.
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Child labour
About 80% of association footballs are made in Pakistan. 75% of
these (60% of all world production) are made in the city of
Sialkot. In the past child labour was often used in the
production of the balls. In 1996, during the European
championship, activists decided to press this issue. This
eventually led to the Atlanta Agreement, which forced ball
manufacturers to make sure no child labour was involved in the
fabrication of their products. This also led to a centralisation
of production, which on the one hand would make it easier for
the Independent Monitoring Association for Child Labour (IMAC[2])
- an organization created to watch over the Atlanta Agreement -
to make sure no child labour occurred, on the other hand often
forced workers to commute further to get to work. Now the
production takes place primarily in small workshops and
factories and is now totally Child-Labour free.
2006 World Cup
The official FIFA World Cup footballs for Germany 2006 matches
were made in Thailand. Adidas, who have provided the official
match balls for the tournament since 1970, used "thermally
bonded" machine pressed balls instead of traditionally stiched
balls.
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