🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 62 (from laksa098)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa062.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup","crawl_time":1775863361,"first_indexed_time":1750226491,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,britannica!www,\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup s443","src_root_hash":"5455945239613777662","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"FIFA Club World Cup | Winners, Clubs, & Facts | Britannica","meta_descriptions":["The FIFA Club World Cup is an international tournament organized by FIFA to determine the world’s top football (soccer) clubs."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"football\n,  any of a number of related games, all of which are\ncharacterized\nby two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a\nball\ntoward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion.\n(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)\nFor an explanation of contemporary football\nsports\n,\nsee\nfootball (soccer)\n;\nAmerican football\n;\nrugby\n;\nAustralian rules football\n; and\nGaelic football\n.\nBritannica Quiz\nAmerican Sports Nicknames\nThe impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of\nharpastum\n, often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the\nindigenous\npeoples of\nNorth America\n, they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of\nlacrosse\n.\nThe\nfolk football\ngames of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or\nEaster\n, may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were\ntumultuous\naffairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or\nleather\nball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly\nrobust\nor skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s\nparish\nchurch. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual.\nThe game was violent. The\nFrench\nversion, known as\nsoule\n, was described by Michel Bouet in\nSignification du sport\n(1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to\nBarbarians, Gentlemen and Players\n(1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.”\nNot surprisingly, most of the information about\nmedieval\nfolk football is derived from legal documents.\nEdward II\nbanned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is\nRichard Carew\n’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his\nSurvey of Cornwall\n(1602).\nThe trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.\nSUBSCRIBE\nThat\nBritish\nfolk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by\nSir Thomas Elyot\n’s\ncondemnation\nin\nThe Governour\n(1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even\nJames I\n, who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in\nBasilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince\n(1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the [players] thereof.”\nIn Renaissance\nItaly\nthe rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became\ncalcio\n, a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as\nFlorence’s\nPiazza di\nSanta Croce\n. In his\nDiscorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino\n(1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”),\nGiovanni Bardi\nwrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve\ndecorum\n. (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.)\nAs an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and\nAshbourne\n(Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “\nOde on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,”\nThomas Gray\nreferred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools.\nThe institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s\nFootball Association\n(1863). References to “\nAssociation football\n” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game,\nrugby\n, under the aegis of the\nRugby Football Union\n(1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester,\nAustralian rules football\nwas born. In the\nUnited States\n, rugby was quickly transformed into\ngridiron football\n. (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard [9.1-metre] intervals.) Although\nGaelic football\nis similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the\nauspices\nof the\nGaelic Athletic Association\n(1884) as a distinctively Irish\nalternative\nto the imported English games of soccer and rugby.","attrs_markdown":"[![Encyclopedia Britannica](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel\/eb-logo\/MendelNewThistleLogo.png)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/)\n\n[![Encyclopedia Britannica](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel\/eb-logo\/MendelNewThistleLogo.png)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/)\n\n[SUBSCRIBE](https:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=global-nav&utm_campaign=blue-evergreen)\n\n[SUBSCRIBE](https:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=global-nav-mobile&utm_campaign=blue-evergreen)\n\nLogin\n\nhttps:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm\\_source=premium\\&utm\\_medium=nav-login-box\\&utm\\_campaign=evergreen\n\n[SUBSCRIBE](https:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=hamburger-menu&utm_campaign=blue)\n\n[Ask the Chatbot](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/chatbot)\n\n[Games & Quizzes](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/quiz\/browse) [History & Society](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/History-Society) [Science & Tech](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/Science-Tech) [Biographies](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/Biographies) [Animals & Nature](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/Animals-Nature) [Geography & Travel](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/Geography-Travel) [Arts & Culture](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/Arts-Culture) [ProCon](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/procon) [Money](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/money) [Videos](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/videos)\n\n[FIFA Club World Cup](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup)\n\n- [Introduction & Top Questions](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup)\n- [List of FIFA Club World Cup winners](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup#ref425398)\n\n[References & Edit History](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup\/additional-info)  [Related Topics](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/facts\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup)\n\n[Images](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup\/images-videos)\n\n[![2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/65\/273965-004-72F7B6FB\/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg)](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/65\/273965-050-5C979CE8\/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)\n\nContents\n\nAsk Anything\n\n[Sports & Recreation](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/browse\/Sports-Recreation)    [Soccer](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/browse\/Soccer)\n\nCITE\n\nShare\n\nFeedback\n\nExternal Websites\n\n[![2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/65\/273965-050-5C979CE8\/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg?w=400&h=300&c=crop)](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/65\/273965-050-5C979CE8\/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg)\n\n[2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/65\/273965-050-5C979CE8\/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg) Kyle Walker of Manchester City lifts the FIFA Club World Cup trophy after their team's victory in the final against Brazilian club Fluminense, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 22, 2023.\n\n(more)\n\n# FIFA Club World Cup\nfootball tournament\n\nHomework Help\n\nWritten by\n\n[Andrew Pereira Andrew Pereira is an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He covers a variety of topics, with a focus on Indian politics, foreign policy, and global affairs.](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/editor\/andrew-pereira\/13086397)\n\nAndrew Pereira\n\nFact-checked by\n\n[Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/editor\/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica\/4419)\n\nBritannica Editors\n\nLast updated\n\nMar. 1, 2026\n\n•[History](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup\/additional-info#history)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Britannica AI\n\nAsk Anything\n\nTable of Contents\n\nTable of Contents\n\nAsk Anything\n\nTop Questions\n\n### What is the FIFA Club World Cup?\nThe FIFA Club World Cup is an international tournament organized by [FIFA](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Federation-Internationale-de-Football-Association) to determine the world’s top [football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer) (soccer) clubs.\n\n### Which club has won the most FIFA Club World Cup titles?\n[Real Madrid](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Real-Madrid) holds the record for the most FIFA Club World Cup titles, with five championships (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022).\n\n### Has Lionel Messi ever won the FIFA Club World Cup?\n[Lionel Messi](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Lionel-Messi) has won the FIFA Club World Cup three times with [FC Barcelona](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FC-Barcelona) in 2009, 2011, and 2015.\n\n### Has Cristiano Ronaldo ever won the FIFA Club World Cup?\n[Cristiano Ronaldo](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Cristiano-Ronaldo) has won the FIFA Club World Cup four times, once with [Manchester United](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Manchester-United) (2008) and three times with Real Madrid (2014, 2016, and 2017).\n\nThe [FIFA](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Federation-Internationale-de-Football-Association) Club [World Cup](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/World-Cup-skiing), founded in 2000, is an international tournament organized by FIFA to determine the world’s top men’s [football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer) (soccer) club. The competition features champion clubs from each of FIFA’s six continental confederations—Union of [European](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Europe) Football Associations (UEFA), [South American](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/South-America) Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), [Asian](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Asia) Football Confederation (AFC), Confederation of [African](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Africa) Football (CAF), Confederation of [North](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/North-America), [Central American](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Central-America), and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), and [Oceania](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Oceania-region-Pacific-Ocean) Football Confederation (OFC)—and a club from the host country.\n\nThe tournament was initially called the FIFA Club World Championship and was not held from 2001 to 2004 because of financial issues. It was relaunched in 2005 and renamed the FIFA Club World Cup in 2006. The tournament was held annually until 2023. In 2022 FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced that the Club World Cup, traditionally featuring 6 to 8 teams, would expand into a 32-team, quadrennial tournament, starting in 2025.\n\nKey People:\n\n[Gianni Infantino](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Gianni-Infantino)\n\n*(Show more)*\n\nRelated Topics:\n\n[football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer)\n\n*(Show more)*\n\n[See all related content](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/facts\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup)\n\nThe table below provides a list of FIFA Club World Cup champions.\n\n## List of FIFA Club World Cup winners\n| year | host | winner | runner-up | final score |\n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| \\*Won after extra time. |   |   |   |   |\n| 2000 | [Brazil](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Brazil) | Corinthians (Brazil) | Vasco da Gama (Brazil) | 0–0 (Corinthians won 4–3 on penalties) |\n| 2005 | [Japan](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Japan) | [São Paulo FC](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Sao-Paulo-FC) (Brazil) | [Liverpool FC](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Liverpool-FC) ([England](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/England)) | 1–0 |\n| 2006 | Japan | Internacional (Brazil) | [FC Barcelona](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FC-Barcelona) ([Spain](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Spain)) | 1–0 |\n| 2007 | Japan | [AC Milan](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/AC-Milan) ([Italy](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Italy)) | [Boca Juniors](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Boca-Juniors) ([Argentina](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Argentina)) | 4–2 |\n| 2008 | Japan | [Manchester United](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Manchester-United) (England) | LDU Quito ([Ecuador](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Ecuador)) | 1–0 |\n| 2009 | [United Arab Emirates](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/United-Arab-Emirates) (UAE) | FC Barcelona (Spain) | Club Estudiantes de La Plata (Argentina) | 2–1\\* |\n| 2010 | UAE | [Inter Milan](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Inter-Milan) (Italy) | TP Mazembe ([Democratic Republic of the Congo](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo)) | 3–0 |\n| 2011 | Japan | FC Barcelona (Spain) | Santos FC (Brazil) | 4–0 |\n| 2012 | Japan | Corinthians (Brazil) | [Chelsea FC](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Chelsea-FC) (England) | 1–0 |\n| 2013 | [Morocco](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Morocco) | [Bayern Munich](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Bayern-Munich) ([Germany](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Germany)) | Raja Casablanca (Morocco) | 2–0 |\n| 2014 | Morocco | [Real Madrid](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Real-Madrid) (Spain) | San Lorenzo (Argentina) | 2–0 |\n| 2015 | Japan | FC Barcelona (Spain) | River Plate (Argentina) | 3–0 |\n| 2016 | Japan | Real Madrid (Spain) | Kashima Antlers (Japan) | 4–2\\* |\n| 2017 | UAE | Real Madrid (Spain) | Grêmio (Brazil) | 1–0 |\n| 2018 | UAE | Real Madrid (Spain) | Al Ain (UAE) | 4–1 |\n| 2019 | [Qatar](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Qatar) | Liverpool FC (England) | Flamengo (Brazil) | 1–0\\* |\n| 2020 | Qatar | Bayern Munich (Germany) | Tigres UANL ([Mexico](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Mexico)) | 1–0 |\n| 2021 | UAE | Chelsea FC (England) | Palmeiras (Brazil) | 2–1\\* |\n| 2022 | Morocco | Real Madrid (Spain) | Al-Hilal ([Saudi Arabia](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Saudi-Arabia)) | 5–3 |\n| 2023 | Saudi Arabia | Manchester City FC (England) | Fluminense (Brazil) | 4–0 |\n| 2025 | United States | Chelsea FC (England) | Paris Saint-Germain FC (France) | 3–0 |\n\n[Andrew Pereira](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/editor\/andrew-pereira\/13086397)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)Britannica AI\n\n*chevron\\_right*\n\nFIFA Club World Cup\n\n*close*\n\n[AI-generated answers](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/about-britannica-ai) from Britannica articles. AI makes mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.\n\n[football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games)\n\n[Introduction](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games)   [References & Edit History](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games\/additional-info)  [Related Topics](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/facts\/football-the-games)\n\nQuizzes\n\n[![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/52\/139052-131-7A7975D1\/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg?w=200&h=200&c=crop)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/quiz\/american-sports-nicknames)\n\n[American Sports Nicknames](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/quiz\/american-sports-nicknames)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)\n\nAsk Anything\n\nQuick Summary\n\n[Sports & Recreation](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/browse\/Sports-Recreation)    [Other Sports](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/browse\/Other-Sports)\n\nCITE\n\nShare\n\nFeedback\n\nExternal Websites\n\n# football\nHomework Help\n\nWritten by\n\n[Allen Guttmann Professor of English and American Studies, Amherst College, Massachusetts. Author of *A Whole New Ball Game* and others.](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/contributor\/Allen-Guttmann\/3387)\n\nAllen Guttmann\n\nFact-checked by\n\n[Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/editor\/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica\/4419)\n\nBritannica Editors\n\n[History](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games\/additional-info#history)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Britannica AI\n\nAsk Anything\n\nQuick Summary\n\nTable of Contents\n\nTable of Contents\n\nQuick Summary\n\nAsk Anything\n\n**football**, any of a number of related games, all of which are [characterized](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/characterized) by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a [ball](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/ball-sports) toward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion.\n\n*[(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Walter-Camp-on-football-2215532)*\n\nFor an explanation of contemporary football [sports](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/sports), *see* [football (soccer)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer); [American football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/American-football); [rugby](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/rugby); [Australian rules football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Australian-rules-football); and [Gaelic football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Gaelic-football).\n\n[![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/52\/139052-131-7A7975D1\/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg) Britannica Quiz American Sports Nicknames](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/quiz\/american-sports-nicknames)\n\nThe impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of *harpastum*, often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the [indigenous](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/indigenous) peoples of [North America](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/North-America), they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of [lacrosse](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/lacrosse).\n\nThe [folk football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/folk-football) games of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or [Easter](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Easter-holiday), may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were [tumultuous](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/tumultuous) affairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or [leather](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/leather) ball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly [robust](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/robust) or skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s [parish](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/parish-religion) church. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual.\n\nThe game was violent. The [French](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/France) version, known as *soule*, was described by Michel Bouet in *Signification du sport* (1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to *Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players* (1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.”\n\nNot surprisingly, most of the information about [medieval](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/medieval) folk football is derived from legal documents. [Edward II](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Edward-II-king-of-England) banned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is [Richard Carew](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Richard-Carew)’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his *Survey of Cornwall* (1602).\n\nExplore Britannica Premium\\!\n\nThe trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.\n\n[SUBSCRIBE](https:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=redesign-2026)\n\n![Penguin, ship, mountain, atlas](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-left.webp)\n\n![shohei ohtani, plants, andy wharhol art](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-right.webp)\n\n![Mobile](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-mobile.webp?w=400)\n\nThat [British](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Britain) folk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by [Sir Thomas Elyot](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Thomas-Elyot)’s [condemnation](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/condemnation) in *The Governour* (1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even [James I](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/James-I-king-of-England-and-Scotland), who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in *[Basilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Basilikon-Doron)* (1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the \\[players\\] thereof.”\n\nIn Renaissance [Italy](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Italy) the rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became *[calcio](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/calcio)*, a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as [Florence’s](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Florence) Piazza di [Santa Croce](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Santa-Croce). In his *Discorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino* (1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”), [Giovanni Bardi](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Giovanni-Bardi-conte-di-Vernio) wrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve [decorum](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/decorum). (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.)\n\nAs an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and [Ashbourne](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Ashbourne) (Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” [Thomas Gray](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Thomas-Gray-English-poet) referred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools.\n\nRelated Topics:\n\n[American football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/American-football)\n\n[football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer)\n\n[rugby](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/rugby)\n\n[Australian rules football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Australian-rules-football)\n\n[touchdown](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/touchdown)\n\n*(Show more)*\n\n[See all related content](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/facts\/football-the-games)\n\nThe institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s [Football Association](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Football-Association) (1863). References to “[Association football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer)” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game, [rugby](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/rugby), under the aegis of the [Rugby Football Union](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Rugby-Football-Union) (1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester, [Australian rules football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Australian-rules-football) was born. In the [United States](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/United-States), rugby was quickly transformed into [gridiron football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/American-football). (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard \\[9.1-metre\\] intervals.) Although [Gaelic football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Gaelic-football) is similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the [auspices](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/auspices) of the [Gaelic Athletic Association](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Gaelic-Athletic-Association) (1884) as a distinctively Irish [alternative](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/alternative) to the imported English games of soccer and rugby.\n\n[Allen Guttmann](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/contributor\/Allen-Guttmann\/3387)\n\n![Britannica AI Icon](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/mendel-resources\/3-179\/images\/chatbot\/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)Britannica AI\n\n*chevron\\_right*\n\nFootball\n\n*close*\n\n[AI-generated answers](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/about-britannica-ai) from Britannica articles. AI makes mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.\n\nLoad Next Page\n\nFeedback\n\nThank you for your feedback\n\nOur editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.\n\n*print* Print\n\nPlease select which sections you would like to print:\n\n*verified*Cite\n\nWhile every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.\n\nSelect Citation Style\n\nPereira, Andrew. \"FIFA Club World Cup\". *Encyclopedia Britannica*, 1 Mar. 2026, https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup. Accessed 10 April 2026.\n\nCopy Citation\n\nShare\n\nShare to social media\n\n[Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BRITANNICA\/) [X](https:\/\/x.com\/britannica)\n\nURL\n\n<https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/FIFA-Club-World-Cup>\n\nFeedback\n\nThank you for your feedback\n\nOur editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.\n\n*verified*Cite\n\nWhile every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.\n\nSelect Citation Style\n\nGuttmann, Allen. \"football\". *Encyclopedia Britannica*, 1 Dec. 2025, https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games. Accessed 10 April 2026.\n\nCopy Citation\n\nShare\n\nShare to social media\n\n[Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BRITANNICA\/) [X](https:\/\/x.com\/britannica)\n\nURL\n\n<https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-the-games>\n\nExternal Websites\n\n- [BBC - You're Dead To Me - The History of Football](https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/audio\/play\/p07n8q35)\n- [National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Testing in Football: A Narrative Review](https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC11598473\/)\n- [Brown University - Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology - The football](https:\/\/www.brown.edu\/Departments\/Joukowsky_Institute\/courses\/13things\/6593.html)\n- [English Heritage - The history of football in England](https:\/\/www.english-heritage.org.uk\/visit\/inspire-me\/the-history-of-football-in-england\/)","attrs_readable_markdown":"**football**, any of a number of related games, all of which are [characterized](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/characterized) by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a [ball](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/ball-sports) toward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion.\n\n*[(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Walter-Camp-on-football-2215532)*\n\nFor an explanation of contemporary football [sports](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/sports), *see* [football (soccer)](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer); [American football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/American-football); [rugby](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/rugby); [Australian rules football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Australian-rules-football); and [Gaelic football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Gaelic-football).\n\n[![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/52\/139052-131-7A7975D1\/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg) Britannica Quiz American Sports Nicknames](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/quiz\/american-sports-nicknames)\n\nThe impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of *harpastum*, often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the [indigenous](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/indigenous) peoples of [North America](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/North-America), they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of [lacrosse](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/lacrosse).\n\nThe [folk football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/folk-football) games of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or [Easter](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Easter-holiday), may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were [tumultuous](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/tumultuous) affairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or [leather](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/leather) ball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly [robust](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/robust) or skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s [parish](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/parish-religion) church. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual.\n\nThe game was violent. The [French](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/France) version, known as *soule*, was described by Michel Bouet in *Signification du sport* (1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to *Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players* (1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.”\n\nNot surprisingly, most of the information about [medieval](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/medieval) folk football is derived from legal documents. [Edward II](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Edward-II-king-of-England) banned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is [Richard Carew](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Richard-Carew)’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his *Survey of Cornwall* (1602).\n\nThe trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.\n\n[SUBSCRIBE](https:\/\/premium.britannica.com\/premium-membership\/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=redesign-2026)\n\n![Penguin, ship, mountain, atlas](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-left.webp)\n\n![shohei ohtani, plants, andy wharhol art](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-right.webp)\n\n![Mobile](https:\/\/cdn.britannica.com\/marketing\/inline-mobile.webp?w=400)\n\nThat [British](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Britain) folk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by [Sir Thomas Elyot](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Thomas-Elyot)’s [condemnation](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/condemnation) in *The Governour* (1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even [James I](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/James-I-king-of-England-and-Scotland), who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in *[Basilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Basilikon-Doron)* (1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the \\[players\\] thereof.”\n\nIn Renaissance [Italy](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Italy) the rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became *[calcio](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/calcio)*, a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as [Florence’s](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Florence) Piazza di [Santa Croce](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Santa-Croce). In his *Discorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino* (1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”), [Giovanni Bardi](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Giovanni-Bardi-conte-di-Vernio) wrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve [decorum](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/decorum). (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.)\n\nAs an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and [Ashbourne](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Ashbourne) (Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” [Thomas Gray](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Thomas-Gray-English-poet) referred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools.\n\nThe institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s [Football Association](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Football-Association) (1863). References to “[Association football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/football-soccer)” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game, [rugby](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/rugby), under the aegis of the [Rugby Football Union](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Rugby-Football-Union) (1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester, [Australian rules football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Australian-rules-football) was born. In the [United States](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/United-States), rugby was quickly transformed into [gridiron football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/American-football). (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard \\[9.1-metre\\] intervals.) Although [Gaelic football](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/sports\/Gaelic-football) is similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the [auspices](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/auspices) of the [Gaelic Athletic Association](https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Gaelic-Athletic-Association) (1884) as a distinctively Irish [alternative](https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/alternative) to the imported English games of soccer and rugby.","meta_canonical":null}

3. Robots.txt Check

Query:

Response:

4. Spam/Ban Check

Query:

Response:

5. Seen Status Check

ℹ️ Skipped - page is already crawled

📄

INDEXABLE

✅

CRAWLED

16 hours ago

🤖

ROBOTS ALLOWED

Page Info Filters

Filter	Status	Condition	Details
HTTP status	PASS	`download_http_code = 200`	HTTP 200
Age cutoff	PASS	`download_stamp > now() - 6 MONTH`	0 months ago
History drop	PASS	`isNull(history_drop_reason)`	No drop reason
Spam/ban	PASS	`fh_dont_index != 1 AND ml_spam_score = 0`	ml_spam_score=0
Canonical	PASS	`meta_canonical IS NULL OR = '' OR = src_unparsed`	Not set

Page Details

Property	Value
URL	https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup
Last Crawled	2026-04-10 23:22:41 (16 hours ago)
First Indexed	2025-06-18 06:01:31 (9 months ago)
HTTP Status Code	200
Meta Title	FIFA Club World Cup \| Winners, Clubs, & Facts \| Britannica
Meta Description	The FIFA Club World Cup is an international tournament organized by FIFA to determine the world’s top football (soccer) clubs.
Meta Canonical	null
Boilerpipe Text	football , any of a number of related games, all of which are characterized by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a ball toward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion. (Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.) For an explanation of contemporary football sports , see football (soccer) ; American football ; rugby ; Australian rules football ; and Gaelic football . Britannica Quiz American Sports Nicknames The impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of harpastum , often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the indigenous peoples of North America , they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of lacrosse . The folk football games of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or Easter , may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were tumultuous affairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or leather ball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly robust or skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s parish church. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual. The game was violent. The French version, known as soule , was described by Michel Bouet in Signification du sport (1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players (1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.” Not surprisingly, most of the information about medieval folk football is derived from legal documents. Edward II banned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is Richard Carew ’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his Survey of Cornwall (1602). The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners. SUBSCRIBE That British folk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by Sir Thomas Elyot ’s condemnation in The Governour (1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even James I , who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in Basilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince (1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the [players] thereof.” In Renaissance Italy the rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became calcio , a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as Florence’s Piazza di Santa Croce . In his Discorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino (1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”), Giovanni Bardi wrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve decorum . (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.) As an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and Ashbourne (Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “ Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” Thomas Gray referred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools. The institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s Football Association (1863). References to “ Association football ” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game, rugby , under the aegis of the Rugby Football Union (1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester, Australian rules football was born. In the United States , rugby was quickly transformed into gridiron football . (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard [9.1-metre] intervals.) Although Gaelic football is similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association (1884) as a distinctively Irish alternative to the imported English games of soccer and rugby.
Markdown	[![Encyclopedia Britannica](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel/eb-logo/MendelNewThistleLogo.png)](https://www.britannica.com/) [![Encyclopedia Britannica](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel/eb-logo/MendelNewThistleLogo.png)](https://www.britannica.com/) [SUBSCRIBE](https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=global-nav&utm_campaign=blue-evergreen) [SUBSCRIBE](https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=global-nav-mobile&utm_campaign=blue-evergreen) Login https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm\_source=premium\&utm\_medium=nav-login-box\&utm\_campaign=evergreen [SUBSCRIBE](https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=hamburger-menu&utm_campaign=blue) [Ask the Chatbot](https://www.britannica.com/chatbot) [Games & Quizzes](https://www.britannica.com/quiz/browse) [History & Society](https://www.britannica.com/History-Society) [Science & Tech](https://www.britannica.com/Science-Tech) [Biographies](https://www.britannica.com/Biographies) [Animals & Nature](https://www.britannica.com/Animals-Nature) [Geography & Travel](https://www.britannica.com/Geography-Travel) [Arts & Culture](https://www.britannica.com/Arts-Culture) [ProCon](https://www.britannica.com/procon) [Money](https://www.britannica.com/money) [Videos](https://www.britannica.com/videos) [FIFA Club World Cup](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup) - [Introduction & Top Questions](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup) - [List of FIFA Club World Cup winners](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup#ref425398) [References & Edit History](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup/additional-info) [Related Topics](https://www.britannica.com/facts/FIFA-Club-World-Cup) [Images](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup/images-videos) [![2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https://cdn.britannica.com/65/273965-004-72F7B6FB/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg)](https://cdn.britannica.com/65/273965-050-5C979CE8/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Contents Ask Anything [Sports & Recreation](https://www.britannica.com/browse/Sports-Recreation) [Soccer](https://www.britannica.com/browse/Soccer) CITE Share Feedback External Websites [![2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https://cdn.britannica.com/65/273965-050-5C979CE8/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg?w=400&h=300&c=crop)](https://cdn.britannica.com/65/273965-050-5C979CE8/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg) [2023 FIFA Club World Cup champions](https://cdn.britannica.com/65/273965-050-5C979CE8/Manchester-City-Lifts-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Trophy-After-Team-Victory-In-The-FIFA-Club-World-Cup-Saudi-Arabia-2023.jpg) Kyle Walker of Manchester City lifts the FIFA Club World Cup trophy after their team's victory in the final against Brazilian club Fluminense, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 22, 2023. (more) # FIFA Club World Cup football tournament Homework Help Written by [Andrew Pereira Andrew Pereira is an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He covers a variety of topics, with a focus on Indian politics, foreign policy, and global affairs.](https://www.britannica.com/editor/andrew-pereira/13086397) Andrew Pereira Fact-checked by [Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....](https://www.britannica.com/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419) Britannica Editors Last updated Mar. 1, 2026 •[History](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup/additional-info#history) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything Top Questions ### What is the FIFA Club World Cup? The FIFA Club World Cup is an international tournament organized by [FIFA](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Federation-Internationale-de-Football-Association) to determine the world’s top [football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer) (soccer) clubs. ### Which club has won the most FIFA Club World Cup titles? [Real Madrid](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Real-Madrid) holds the record for the most FIFA Club World Cup titles, with five championships (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022). ### Has Lionel Messi ever won the FIFA Club World Cup? [Lionel Messi](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lionel-Messi) has won the FIFA Club World Cup three times with [FC Barcelona](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FC-Barcelona) in 2009, 2011, and 2015. ### Has Cristiano Ronaldo ever won the FIFA Club World Cup? [Cristiano Ronaldo](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cristiano-Ronaldo) has won the FIFA Club World Cup four times, once with [Manchester United](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Manchester-United) (2008) and three times with Real Madrid (2014, 2016, and 2017). The [FIFA](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Federation-Internationale-de-Football-Association) Club [World Cup](https://www.britannica.com/sports/World-Cup-skiing), founded in 2000, is an international tournament organized by FIFA to determine the world’s top men’s [football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer) (soccer) club. The competition features champion clubs from each of FIFA’s six continental confederations—Union of [European](https://www.britannica.com/place/Europe) Football Associations (UEFA), [South American](https://www.britannica.com/place/South-America) Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), [Asian](https://www.britannica.com/place/Asia) Football Confederation (AFC), Confederation of [African](https://www.britannica.com/place/Africa) Football (CAF), Confederation of [North](https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America), [Central American](https://www.britannica.com/place/Central-America), and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), and [Oceania](https://www.britannica.com/place/Oceania-region-Pacific-Ocean) Football Confederation (OFC)—and a club from the host country. The tournament was initially called the FIFA Club World Championship and was not held from 2001 to 2004 because of financial issues. It was relaunched in 2005 and renamed the FIFA Club World Cup in 2006. The tournament was held annually until 2023. In 2022 FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced that the Club World Cup, traditionally featuring 6 to 8 teams, would expand into a 32-team, quadrennial tournament, starting in 2025. Key People: [Gianni Infantino](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gianni-Infantino) (Show more) Related Topics: [football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer) (Show more) [See all related content](https://www.britannica.com/facts/FIFA-Club-World-Cup) The table below provides a list of FIFA Club World Cup champions. ## List of FIFA Club World Cup winners \| year \| host \| winner \| runner-up \| final score \| \|---\|---\|---\|---\|---\| \| \Won after extra time. \| \| \| \| \| \| 2000 \| [Brazil](https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil) \| Corinthians (Brazil) \| Vasco da Gama (Brazil) \| 0–0 (Corinthians won 4–3 on penalties) \| \| 2005 \| [Japan](https://www.britannica.com/place/Japan) \| [São Paulo FC](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sao-Paulo-FC) (Brazil) \| [Liverpool FC](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Liverpool-FC) ([England](https://www.britannica.com/place/England)) \| 1–0 \| \| 2006 \| Japan \| Internacional (Brazil) \| [FC Barcelona](https://www.britannica.com/topic/FC-Barcelona) ([Spain](https://www.britannica.com/place/Spain)) \| 1–0 \| \| 2007 \| Japan \| [AC Milan](https://www.britannica.com/topic/AC-Milan) ([Italy](https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy)) \| [Boca Juniors](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Boca-Juniors) ([Argentina](https://www.britannica.com/place/Argentina)) \| 4–2 \| \| 2008 \| Japan \| [Manchester United](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Manchester-United) (England) \| LDU Quito ([Ecuador](https://www.britannica.com/place/Ecuador)) \| 1–0 \| \| 2009 \| [United Arab Emirates](https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Arab-Emirates) (UAE) \| FC Barcelona (Spain) \| Club Estudiantes de La Plata (Argentina) \| 2–1\ \| \| 2010 \| UAE \| [Inter Milan](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inter-Milan) (Italy) \| TP Mazembe ([Democratic Republic of the Congo](https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo)) \| 3–0 \| \| 2011 \| Japan \| FC Barcelona (Spain) \| Santos FC (Brazil) \| 4–0 \| \| 2012 \| Japan \| Corinthians (Brazil) \| [Chelsea FC](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chelsea-FC) (England) \| 1–0 \| \| 2013 \| [Morocco](https://www.britannica.com/place/Morocco) \| [Bayern Munich](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bayern-Munich) ([Germany](https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany)) \| Raja Casablanca (Morocco) \| 2–0 \| \| 2014 \| Morocco \| [Real Madrid](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Real-Madrid) (Spain) \| San Lorenzo (Argentina) \| 2–0 \| \| 2015 \| Japan \| FC Barcelona (Spain) \| River Plate (Argentina) \| 3–0 \| \| 2016 \| Japan \| Real Madrid (Spain) \| Kashima Antlers (Japan) \| 4–2\* \| \| 2017 \| UAE \| Real Madrid (Spain) \| Grêmio (Brazil) \| 1–0 \| \| 2018 \| UAE \| Real Madrid (Spain) \| Al Ain (UAE) \| 4–1 \| \| 2019 \| [Qatar](https://www.britannica.com/place/Qatar) \| Liverpool FC (England) \| Flamengo (Brazil) \| 1–0\* \| \| 2020 \| Qatar \| Bayern Munich (Germany) \| Tigres UANL ([Mexico](https://www.britannica.com/place/Mexico)) \| 1–0 \| \| 2021 \| UAE \| Chelsea FC (England) \| Palmeiras (Brazil) \| 2–1\* \| \| 2022 \| Morocco \| Real Madrid (Spain) \| Al-Hilal ([Saudi Arabia](https://www.britannica.com/place/Saudi-Arabia)) \| 5–3 \| \| 2023 \| Saudi Arabia \| Manchester City FC (England) \| Fluminense (Brazil) \| 4–0 \| \| 2025 \| United States \| Chelsea FC (England) \| Paris Saint-Germain FC (France) \| 3–0 \| [Andrew Pereira](https://www.britannica.com/editor/andrew-pereira/13086397) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)Britannica AI chevron\_right FIFA Club World Cup close [AI-generated answers](https://www.britannica.com/about-britannica-ai) from Britannica articles. AI makes mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. [football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games) [Introduction](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games) [References & Edit History](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games/additional-info) [Related Topics](https://www.britannica.com/facts/football-the-games) Quizzes [![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https://cdn.britannica.com/52/139052-131-7A7975D1/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg?w=200&h=200&c=crop)](https://www.britannica.com/quiz/american-sports-nicknames) [American Sports Nicknames](https://www.britannica.com/quiz/american-sports-nicknames) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Ask Anything Quick Summary [Sports & Recreation](https://www.britannica.com/browse/Sports-Recreation) [Other Sports](https://www.britannica.com/browse/Other-Sports) CITE Share Feedback External Websites # football Homework Help Written by [Allen Guttmann Professor of English and American Studies, Amherst College, Massachusetts. Author of A Whole New Ball Game and others.](https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Allen-Guttmann/3387) Allen Guttmann Fact-checked by [Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....](https://www.britannica.com/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419) Britannica Editors [History](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games/additional-info#history) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9) Britannica AI Ask Anything Quick Summary Table of Contents Table of Contents Quick Summary Ask Anything football, any of a number of related games, all of which are [characterized](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/characterized) by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a [ball](https://www.britannica.com/sports/ball-sports) toward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion. [(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Camp-on-football-2215532) For an explanation of contemporary football [sports](https://www.britannica.com/sports/sports), see [football (soccer)](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer); [American football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/American-football); [rugby](https://www.britannica.com/sports/rugby); [Australian rules football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Australian-rules-football); and [Gaelic football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Gaelic-football). [![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https://cdn.britannica.com/52/139052-131-7A7975D1/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg) Britannica Quiz American Sports Nicknames](https://www.britannica.com/quiz/american-sports-nicknames) The impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of harpastum, often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the [indigenous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indigenous) peoples of [North America](https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America), they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of [lacrosse](https://www.britannica.com/sports/lacrosse). The [folk football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/folk-football) games of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or [Easter](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday), may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were [tumultuous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tumultuous) affairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or [leather](https://www.britannica.com/topic/leather) ball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly [robust](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robust) or skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s [parish](https://www.britannica.com/topic/parish-religion) church. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual. The game was violent. The [French](https://www.britannica.com/place/France) version, known as soule, was described by Michel Bouet in Signification du sport (1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players (1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.” Not surprisingly, most of the information about [medieval](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medieval) folk football is derived from legal documents. [Edward II](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-II-king-of-England) banned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is [Richard Carew](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Carew)’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his Survey of Cornwall (1602). Explore Britannica Premium\! The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners. [SUBSCRIBE](https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=redesign-2026) ![Penguin, ship, mountain, atlas](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-left.webp) ![shohei ohtani, plants, andy wharhol art](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-right.webp) ![Mobile](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-mobile.webp?w=400) That [British](https://www.britannica.com/place/Britain) folk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by [Sir Thomas Elyot](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Elyot)’s [condemnation](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/condemnation) in The Governour (1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even [James I](https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-I-king-of-England-and-Scotland), who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in [Basilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basilikon-Doron) (1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the \[players\] thereof.” In Renaissance [Italy](https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy) the rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became [calcio](https://www.britannica.com/sports/calcio), a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as [Florence’s](https://www.britannica.com/place/Florence) Piazza di [Santa Croce](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Santa-Croce). In his Discorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino (1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”), [Giovanni Bardi](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Bardi-conte-di-Vernio) wrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve [decorum](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decorum). (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.) As an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and [Ashbourne](https://www.britannica.com/place/Ashbourne) (Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” [Thomas Gray](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Gray-English-poet) referred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools. Related Topics: [American football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/American-football) [football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer) [rugby](https://www.britannica.com/sports/rugby) [Australian rules football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Australian-rules-football) [touchdown](https://www.britannica.com/sports/touchdown) (Show more) [See all related content](https://www.britannica.com/facts/football-the-games) The institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s [Football Association](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Football-Association) (1863). References to “[Association football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer)” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game, [rugby](https://www.britannica.com/sports/rugby), under the aegis of the [Rugby Football Union](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rugby-Football-Union) (1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester, [Australian rules football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Australian-rules-football) was born. In the [United States](https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States), rugby was quickly transformed into [gridiron football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/American-football). (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard \[9.1-metre\] intervals.) Although [Gaelic football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Gaelic-football) is similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the [auspices](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/auspices) of the [Gaelic Athletic Association](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gaelic-Athletic-Association) (1884) as a distinctively Irish [alternative](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alternative) to the imported English games of soccer and rugby. [Allen Guttmann](https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Allen-Guttmann/3387) ![Britannica AI Icon](https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-179/images/chatbot/star-ai.svg?v=3.179.9)Britannica AI chevron\_right Football close [AI-generated answers](https://www.britannica.com/about-britannica-ai) from Britannica articles. AI makes mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. Load Next Page Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. print Print Please select which sections you would like to print: verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style Pereira, Andrew. "FIFA Club World Cup". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Mar. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup. Accessed 10 April 2026. Copy Citation Share Share to social media [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/BRITANNICA/) [X](https://x.com/britannica) URL <https://www.britannica.com/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup> Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style Guttmann, Allen. "football". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games. Accessed 10 April 2026. Copy Citation Share Share to social media [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/BRITANNICA/) [X](https://x.com/britannica) URL <https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-the-games> External Websites - [BBC - You're Dead To Me - The History of Football](https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p07n8q35) - [National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Testing in Football: A Narrative Review](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11598473/) - [Brown University - Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology - The football](https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/13things/6593.html) - [English Heritage - The history of football in England](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/the-history-of-football-in-england/)
Readable Markdown	football, any of a number of related games, all of which are [characterized](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/characterized) by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw, or otherwise propel a [ball](https://www.britannica.com/sports/ball-sports) toward an opponent’s goal. In some of these games, only kicking is allowed; in others, kicking has become less important than other means of propulsion. [(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Camp-on-football-2215532) For an explanation of contemporary football [sports](https://www.britannica.com/sports/sports), see [football (soccer)](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer); [American football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/American-football); [rugby](https://www.britannica.com/sports/rugby); [Australian rules football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Australian-rules-football); and [Gaelic football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Gaelic-football). [![Assorted sports balls including a basketball, football, soccer ball, tennis ball, baseball and others.](https://cdn.britannica.com/52/139052-131-7A7975D1/Balls-shapes-colors-sizes-sports.jpg) Britannica Quiz American Sports Nicknames](https://www.britannica.com/quiz/american-sports-nicknames) The impulse to kick a round object has been present as long as humans have been humans. The first game of football was played when two or more people, acting on this impulse, competed in an attempt to kick a round object in one direction rather than in another. Evidence of organized football games in Greece and China goes back more than 2,000 years, but historians have no idea how these games were played. Claims that football of some sort was played throughout the Roman Empire are plausible, but the game of harpastum, often cited in support of these claims, seems to have involved throwing a ball rather than kicking it. Although kicking games were played by the [indigenous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indigenous) peoples of [North America](https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America), they were much less popular than the stickball games that are the origin of the modern game of [lacrosse](https://www.britannica.com/sports/lacrosse). The [folk football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/folk-football) games of the 14th and 15th centuries, which were usually played at Shrovetide or [Easter](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday), may have had their origins in pagan fertility rites celebrating the return of spring. They were [tumultuous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tumultuous) affairs. When village competed against village, kicking, throwing, and carrying a wooden or [leather](https://www.britannica.com/topic/leather) ball (or inflated animal bladder) across fields and over streams, through narrow gateways and narrower streets, everyone was involved—men and women, adults and children, rich and poor, laity and clergy. The chaotic contest ended when some particularly [robust](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robust) or skillful villager managed to send the ball through the portal of the opposing village’s [parish](https://www.britannica.com/topic/parish-religion) church. When folk football was confined within a single village, the sides were typically formed of the married versus the unmarried, a division which suggests the game’s origins in fertility ritual. The game was violent. The [French](https://www.britannica.com/place/France) version, known as soule, was described by Michel Bouet in Signification du sport (1968) as “a veritable combat for possession of the ball,” in which the participants struggled “like dogs fighting over a bone.” The British version, which has been researched more thoroughly than any other, was, according to Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players (1979) by Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, “a pleasurable form…of excitement akin to that aroused in battle.” Not surprisingly, most of the information about [medieval](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medieval) folk football is derived from legal documents. [Edward II](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-II-king-of-England) banned the game in 1314, and his royal successors repeated the prohibition in 1349, 1389, 1401, and 1423, all in a vain attempt to deprive their disobedient subjects of their disorderly pleasure. Despite the bans, records of criminal trials continue to refer to lives lost and property destroyed in the course of an annual football game. The most detailed account, however, is [Richard Carew](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Carew)’s description of “hurling to goales,” from his Survey of Cornwall (1602). The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners. [SUBSCRIBE](https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=redesign-2026) ![Penguin, ship, mountain, atlas](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-left.webp) ![shohei ohtani, plants, andy wharhol art](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-right.webp) ![Mobile](https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/inline-mobile.webp?w=400) That [British](https://www.britannica.com/place/Britain) folk football did not become appreciably more civilized with the arrival of the Renaissance is suggested by [Sir Thomas Elyot](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Elyot)’s [condemnation](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/condemnation) in The Governour (1537). He lamented the games “beastely fury, and extreme violence.” Even [James I](https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-I-king-of-England-and-Scotland), who defended the legitimacy of traditional English pastimes when they were condemned by the Puritans, sought to discourage his subjects from indulging in folk football. He wrote in [Basilikon Doron; or, His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry the Prince](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basilikon-Doron) (1603) that the “rough and violent” game was “meeter for mameing than making able the \[players\] thereof.” In Renaissance [Italy](https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy) the rough-and-tumble sport of folk football became [calcio](https://www.britannica.com/sports/calcio), a game popular among fashionable young aristocrats, who transformed it into a highly formalized and considerably less violent pastime played on bounded rectangular spaces laid out in urban squares such as [Florence’s](https://www.britannica.com/place/Florence) Piazza di [Santa Croce](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Santa-Croce). In his Discorso sopra il gioco del calcio fiorentino (1580; “Discourse on the Florentine Game of Calcio”), [Giovanni Bardi](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Bardi-conte-di-Vernio) wrote that the players should be “gentlemen, from eighteen years of age to forty-five, beautiful and vigorous, of gallant bearing and of good report.” They were expected to wear “goodly raiment.” In a contemporary print, uniformed pikemen guard the field and preserve [decorum](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decorum). (In 1909, in a moment of nationalistic fervour, the Federazione Italiana del Football changed its name to the Federazione Italiana Gioco del Calcio.) As an aspect of more or less unbroken local tradition, in towns such as Boulogne-la-Grasse and [Ashbourne](https://www.britannica.com/place/Ashbourne) (Derbyshire), versions of folk football survived in France and Britain until the early 20th century. Although all modern football sports evolved from medieval folk football, they derive more directly from games played in schoolyards rather than village greens or open fields. In 1747, in his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” [Thomas Gray](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Gray-English-poet) referred to the “flying ball” and the “fearful joy” that it provided the “idle progeny” of England’s elite. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries at Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester, and other public schools, football was played in forms nearly as violent as the medieval version of the game. When the privileged graduates of these schools went on to Oxford and Cambridge, they were reluctant to abandon their “fearful joy.” Since none of them were ready to play by the rules of someone else’s school, the only rational solution was to create new games that incorporated the rules of several schools. The institutional basis for the most widely played of these new games was England’s [Football Association](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Football-Association) (1863). References to “[Association football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/football-soccer)” were soon abbreviated to “soccer.” Graduates of Rugby School, accustomed to rules that permitted carrying and throwing as well as kicking the ball, played their game, [rugby](https://www.britannica.com/sports/rugby), under the aegis of the [Rugby Football Union](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rugby-Football-Union) (1871). When Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835–80) combined Rugby’s rules with those from Harrow and Winchester, [Australian rules football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Australian-rules-football) was born. In the [United States](https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States), rugby was quickly transformed into [gridiron football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/American-football). (The name came from the white stripes that crossed the field at 10-yard \[9.1-metre\] intervals.) Although [Gaelic football](https://www.britannica.com/sports/Gaelic-football) is similar to these other “codes,” that game was institutionalized under the [auspices](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/auspices) of the [Gaelic Athletic Association](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gaelic-Athletic-Association) (1884) as a distinctively Irish [alternative](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alternative) to the imported English games of soccer and rugby.
Shard	62 (laksa)
Root Hash	5455945239613777662
Unparsed URL	com,britannica!www,/topic/FIFA-Club-World-Cup s443