So, I’m going to start this article right off the bat with the truth: nobody invented soccer.
If you clicked the link to this article to find a definitive answer, say, a name like James Naismith, the famed Canadian educator who invented basketball, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
The sport belongs to no one culture and cannot be tied to any one person. It’s a game that the world came to love after it started in certain regions, spread, and was standardized.
Instead, you’ll be learning about the history of the sport: when, where, and how it spread.
Keep reading!
Who Exactly Invented Soccer?
To reiterate, there is no historical figure that can be called the inventor of soccer because it’s a sport that gained popularity among locals of a certain region from where it spread to Britain, where the guiding Laws of the Game were invented.
Now, soccer’s true history is lost. All we know about the beautiful game is that it evolved over centuries from various cultures that had a variation of the game, which required people to kick around a ball made out of rocks, animal hide, bones, or rubber.
These humble origins can still be found in how the game is played at the grassroots level. Soccer remains the game with the easiest barrier to entry – all you need is a ball, a surface, some friends, and things that can serve as goalposts.
In poor countries, balls are made out of plastic or paper by the local kids, stones are used as goalposts, and any surface can be a soccer field.
These are the happiest that kids in these situations get in their young lives, which is why many charities try to improve the experience of playing soccer for them with outreaches and camps that can offer many a pathway to an academy or a different life.
Let’s get back to history.
Now, the Greeks, Romans and Chinese had a variation of the game that’s more like what we have today. Their variation involved them playing around to kick the ball into a target area – basically a goal.
These three great ancient civilizations also adapted the game from earlier ones and passed it down until it got to Britain.
An important fact you must know about the history of soccer is that it is one of seven football codes.
Humans have enjoyed kicking something around for sport and fun. Various forms of this sport that involved kicking a ball around have sprung as a result. The formation of the soccer code is attributed to the way the Greeks, Romans and Chinese played it.
Where Was Soccer Invented?
So the Greeks, Romans and Chinese are credited in history as the places where the idea of soccer began to take root. However, these civilizations had their own rules for playing the sport.
You now understand that soccer wasn’t invented and that it evolved into what we have today thanks to different cultures accepting it and adding their spin to it.
As for where it was invented, the answer’s the same: nowhere in particular. That detail is lost to history. However, what we have today was invented in Britain.
One name is credited with this invention: Ebenezer Morley.
You see, the code of football that came to be known as soccer was played across public schools and recreational clubs in England in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Because there were no central rules much like how it was in the ancient Chinese, Roman and Greek civilizations, different areas formed their rules.
Whenever they faced off, there was chaos: for example, schools and clubs from Sheffield came with their Sheffield rules and those from Cambridge came with their Cambridge rules, leaving most matches unfinished because of bickering over whose rules are to be followed.
One day. Morley, who founded Barnes Football Club, a recreational club where soccer was played, wrote a letter in a newspaper publication called Bell’s Life.
Morley’s letter was to all football club founders and public school headmasters, asking them to come together and create a central rule to guide the sport.
12 club and school representatives saw sense in what Morley proposed and convened under him on October 26, 1863, at the Freemasons’ Tavern on Great Queen Street in London to create these rules.
This was the formation of the English Football Association, the oldest soccer governing body in the world. It was at this meeting that the Laws of the Game were created and soccer was officially codified.
With that in mind, you could say that soccer was invented at the Freemasons’ Tavern on Great Queen Street in London, and you would be right.
When Was Soccer Invented?
Following the story of Morley and the first FA meeting as shared above, you could say that October 26, 1863, was the day soccer was invented, and you would be right.
This meeting was also where the name “Soccer” was coined, as they needed a way to distinguish their sport from other codes of football, like rugby, which were popular in England at the time. The name was coined from “Association Football” which was too long to pronounce every time.
I mean, I cannot imagine myself writing about a game of soccer and going, “In the Association Football game between…” Good on Morley and co for having the insight to call it “Soccer”.
This was the name with which the sport and the rules coined by the FA spread around the world. The British and most of the world later dropped soccer for just “Football” as it gained popularity to become the biggest football code, leaving places like Canada, the USA, and parts of North America where other codes are still very popular to still call it “Soccer”.
Here is a breakdown of how this code of football came to be.
Kicking the Ball
Soccer’s most fundamental skill is the kick. Early soccer-like games involved using the feet to manipulate the ball, unlike other football codes where hands were also employed to varying degrees.
Goals and Scoring
Early soccer-like games had goals. The players were required to get the ball into the opposing team’s goal or into a designated area that was guarded by said team. This is a central element that has remained unchanged in soccer today.
Community and Enduring Tradition
Early versions of soccer were an “Us VS. Them” event. Different towns, villages, and communities would assemble players during festivals and celebrations, and they would face off in a soccer-like game. This has carried on to modern soccer, as seen in national leagues.
Final Thoughts
Soccer is now overseen by FIFA – Fédération Internationale de Football Association (lit. International Federation of Association Football) – created in 1904, 41 years after Morley met with those 12 legendary figures to draft the game’s rules.
FIFA has stayed true to the English FA, however, recognizing the organization as its predecessor and has given it hallowed status.
They did this by creating the IFAB—International Football Association Board—run by the British: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The IFAB is an independent arm of FIFA that serves as the custodian of the Laws of the Game while also originating any changes the sport has seen in the last century and a half.
What an amazing story, huh?
