Football is not only a beautiful game that motivates and encourages team cooperation of a huge number of young people around the world, it also has a great political, national and economic impact. The central global event of this sport is certainly the World Cup, which is organized every four years by the International Federation of Football Associations - FIFA. The World Cup final of the world's most popular game is watched by more people in some places than the Olympics.
International Federation of Football Associations - FIFA celebrated this year on May 21 110th anniversary of operation and to this day the principles and goals remain the same as those set by the gentlemen in Paris in 1904: the development of football, the organization of international competitions and the settlement of disputes. Currently, FIFA is preparing for the start of the World Cup, which will be hosted by Brazil this year. It will be the first match today, June 12, and the national teams of Brazil and Croatia will compete.
The first seeds of football... until today
How did football get the shape we know it today? Where did it all begin? Soccer has been around for thousands of years and almost every culture has enjoyed kicking a ball around. Modern football originates from England, where it was a popular form of leisure for students and workers. By conquering the world and creating colonies, the British spread the enthusiasm for the game around the world. He is considered the founder of modern football English athlete Ebenezer Cobb Morley (from 1831 to 1924). He defined the basics of the rules of the game and was also one of the founders The Football Association, which was founded in 1863. First official international match she unrolled November 30, 1872 between the teams Scotland and England. The match was watched by four thousand spectators in the city of Patrick, Scotland, and the final result was 0:0.
The idea of the World Cup
FIFA conceived the idea of the World Cup in the 1920s. The president of the organization, Jules Rimet, thought about a football event that would be included in the Olympic Games. The idea was not initially well received and the World Cup was not played independently for the first time until 1930 in Uruguay. National teams from Europe participated France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Romania. Other European countries complained about the distance and refused to participate. It played together 13 countries, in addition to the European ones, these were Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico and USA.
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The first two matches were held simultaneously July 13, 1930 between France and Mexico (4 : 1) and honey USA and Belgium (3 : 0). He scored the first goal in the history of the World Cup Lucien Laurent for France, and the first trophy went to Uruguay from the hands of Jules Rimet, when they beat Argentina 4:2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 in Montevideo. The World Cup progressed rapidly as it continued and gained the undisputed status of the largest single sporting event in the modern world.
Today, the FIFA World Cup is followed by almost the entire world public. According to official data, it is the last championship in Africa in 2010 followed just a billion people, which is a seventh of the entire humanity, and the matches in South Africa were watched live by a quarter of a million visitors. Even higher numbers are expected in Brazil this year, as well as for the World Cups in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.
