12 Facts About Association football

Women's association football has historically seen opposition from national associations severely curbing its development, several outlawing it completely.

Two most prestigious competitions in European club Association football are the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Women's Champions League, which attract an extensive television audience throughout the world.

In North America, pasuckuakohowog was a ball game played by the Algonquians; it was described as "almost identical to the kind of folk Association football being played in Europe at the same time, in which the ball was kicked through goals".

The modern rules of association football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England.

World's oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which was founded by the footballer and cricketer Charles W Alcock, and has been contested by English teams since 1872.

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FIFA, the international football body, was formed in Paris in 1904 and declared that they would adhere to Laws of the Game of the Football Association.

In many parts of the world Association football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations.

The Ivory Coast national Association football team helped secure a truce to the nation's civil war in 2006 and it helped further reduce tensions between government and rebel forces in 2007 by playing a match in the rebel capital of Bouake, an occasion that brought both armies together peacefully for the first time.

In 1863, Association football governing bodies introduced standardised rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play.

Women's Association football became popular on a large scale at the time of the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men 50 years earlier.

Growth in women's Association football has seen major competitions being launched at both national and international level mirroring the male competitions.

International competitions in association football principally consist of two varieties: competitions involving representative national teams or those involving clubs based in multiple nations and national leagues.