Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each, who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing team. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is the world's most popular sport.
The Fédération internationale de football association is the international governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, its membership now comprises 211 national associations. These national associations must also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: CAF (Africa), AFC, UEFA (Europe), CONCACAF, OFC (Oceania), and CONMEBOL.
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament that culminates in the Super Bowl, which is contested in February and is played between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
The Union of European Football Associations is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan, as well as the Asian country Israel. UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Since 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.
The Arena Football League (AFL) can refer to one of three successive professional indoor American football leagues in the United States. The first of these was founded in 1986, and played its first official games in the 1987 season, running for 22 consecutive seasons until going bankrupt following the 2008 season. The second league, consisting largely of teams from the first AFL and arenafootball2, purchased the first league's assets out of bankruptcy and resumed play in 2010 as a continuation of the first AFL; this second AFL ran for ten further seasons, before again going bankrupt following the 2019 season. A third AFL, which is not directly connected to the previous two iterations of the league but claiming their histories and trademarks, intends to launch in 2024.
The EFL Cup, currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the English Football League (EFL), it is open to any club within the top four levels of the English football league system—92 clubs in total—comprising the top-level Premier League, and the three divisions of the English Football League's own league competition.
The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contested by UEFA members' senior men's national teams, determining the continental champion of Europe. It is the second-most watched football tournament in the world after the FIFA World Cup; the Euro 2016 final was watched by a global audience of around 600 million. The competition has been held every four years since 1960, except for 2020, when it was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, but kept the name Euro 2020. Scheduled to be in the even-numbered year between FIFA World Cup tournaments, it was originally called the European Nations' Cup before changing to its current name in 1968. Since 1996, the individual events have been branded as "UEFA Euro [year]".
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football since 1956 and co-organized alongside UEFA since 2024. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations.
The Calcutta Cup is the trophy awarded to the winner of the rugby match between England and Scotland played annually in the Six Nations Championship. Like the match itself (England–Scotland), the Calcutta Cup is the oldest trophy contested between any two international rugby union teams, pre-dating the Bledisloe Cup by 53 years, 135 days. It is also the oldest of several trophies awarded under the umbrella of the Six Nations Championship, which include the Millennium Trophy (England–Ireland), Centenary Quaich (Ireland–Scotland), Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy (France–Italy), Auld Alliance Trophy (France–Scotland), the Doddie Weir Cup (Scotland–Wales) and the Cuttitta Cup (Italy–Scotland).
Reginald Howard White was an American professional football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. White played college football for the Tennessee Volunteers, earning recognition as a unanimous All-American. After playing two professional seasons for the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League (USFL), he was selected in the first round of the 1984 Supplemental Draft, and then played for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, and Carolina Panthers, becoming one of the most awarded defensive players in NFL history.
The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isle of Man also competing. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels, allowing even the smallest club the theoretical possibility of ultimately rising to the very top of the system, the Premier League. Below that are levels 2–4 organised by the English Football League, then the National League System from levels 5–10 administered by the FA, and thereafter Regional feeder leagues run by relevant county FAs on an ad hoc basis. It also often happens that the Premier Division of a Regional Feeder League has its constitution given to it by the FA. They have to accept it or appeal but cannot reject it at an annual general meeting.
Arena football is a variety of eight-man indoor gridiron football. The game is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian football, designed to fit in the same surface area as a standard North American ice hockey rink, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game that can be played on the floors of indoor arenas. The sport was invented in 1981, and patented in 1987, by Jim Foster, a former executive of the National Football League and the United States Football League. The name is trademarked by Gridiron Enterprises and had a proprietary format until its patent expired in 2007.
William Stephen Belichick is an American football coach. Widely regarded as one of the greatest head coaches of all time, he holds numerous coaching records, including the record of most Super Bowl wins (six) as a head coach, all with the New England Patriots, along with two more during his time as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, for the record of eight combined total Super Bowl victories as coach and coordinator. A renowned American football historian, Belichick is often referred to as a "student of the game" with a deep knowledge of the intricacies of each player position. During his tenure with the Patriots, he was a central figure as the head coach and de facto general manager during the franchise's dynasty from 2001 to 2019.
The English Football League Championship, known simply as the Championship in England and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet Championship, is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the English football league system, after the Premier League, and is currently contested by 24 clubs.
The English Football League Two, simply known as League Two in England and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet League Two, is the third and lowest division of the English Football League (EFL) and fourth-highest tier overall in the English football league system.
The AFC Champions League is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition in Asian football, played by the national league champions of their national associations.
Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. Being the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Administered by the Ligue de Football Professionnel, Ligue 1 is contested by 18 clubs and operates on a system of promotion and relegation from and to Ligue 2.
American football, also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or throwing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. A game is won by the team with the higher number of points, which are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal.
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football ; Australian rules football; Gaelic football; gridiron football ; International rules football; rugby league football; and rugby union football. These various forms of football share, to varying degrees, common origins and are known as "football codes".
