„Modern football“ is a buzzword. A buzzword with predominantly negative connotations in times of wobbling 50+1, increasing commercialisation, fragmented match days, etc. But was football old before? Antique? Of course not. Etymologically, modern means nothing other than „fashionable/according to today’s fashion“. Synonyms are adjectives such as current, new, contemporary and also mean progressive and something that has just become popular („modo“). The question of modern football is about the phase in which football became popular with the mass of the population, not just a few nerds, and in which the original form was developed further. From Empire to Commercialisation In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, there was football in England, soule in France and calcio in Italy. In Germany, or more precisely the then German Empire, there was no football before the 19th century. It could not, therefore, fall back on forms that were already known and subsequently regulated. Football was unknown. And therefore it first had to gain a foothold in order to be modernised. For the word modern presupposes that …

Rouge. What is that supposed to be anyway? There is not one, but different styles of Rouges. In association football, which is widely played around the world, this style has not endured, but it has in rugby. Because a Rouge has certain similarities to a Try. But what is a Rouge? Let me explain the styles in a clear and brief way. The Rouge is, or was, part of the rules at Eton College (Eton Field Game) and Cheltenham College, as well as at Sheffield FC and in the Sheffield FA. Eton Field Game Scoring At Eton, a distinction is made as to by whom the ball goes out of bounds: by the defending team: A Rouge is scored directly if a player of the defending team touches it first. by the attacking team: The ball is then placed 1 yd from the goal post and the attacking team tries to push the ball over the goal line. As a bully is formed similar to a scrimmage, this is not so easy. Awarding In the …

Change and acceptance need consistency. A longread, not only about female referees at the 2022 World Cup. In football, it is a hedge that has often been divided and then overgrown again – and not just for a few years, but for almost a century. Yes, there have been women in men’s football for almost 100 years, and that on the field as match officials – female referees and assistant referees. At first only a few, but for a good 30 years now and then in the highest level of men’s football – be it in a country’s top league or in international football. Now they were in the highest place: the men’s football World Cup. Stéphanie Frappart from France was the first female referee (1 December 2022). US-American and assistant referee Kathryn Nesbitt was the first woman to officiate at the final of a men’s World Cup (as a reserve assistant referee) (18 December 2022). Incidentally, in the qualifying matches for this World Cup, it was Stéphanie Frappart and Karen Díaz Medina, among others, …

Whoa, that’s a sensation: a female referee officiating a championship match in Brazilian football. Not now or 30 years ago, but almost 100 years ago. The German newspaper „Echo der Gegenwart“ („Echo of the Present“) of 28 October 1933 bears witness to what was perhaps the first woman to not only officiate a charity or friendly match: „Miss Colona“ from Rio de Janiero. First female referee and a smile Her first name is unfortunately not mentioned, but we learn from the article that she was a student at the university of the Brazilian capital and a respected member of the academic „Society of Rio“. The article tells us that – surprisingly for the audience – a woman is in charge of a championship match between two men’s teams. However, Ms. Colona is apparently known to and appreciated by the public, because „[s]he was greeted with greater applause than the most popular stars among the football players“. She is lucky to be in charge of the game even in very difficult situations because she smiles. Smiling …

Wonderful News: „International Youth Football Tournament pro memoria Walther Bensemann“ returns – thanks to „Nie wieder – Erinnerungstag im deutschen Fußball“ („Never again – Remembrance Day in German Football“) and Maccabi Germany. Who was Walther Bensemann? Walther Bensemann was born in Berlin in 1873, but spent his youth at a boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland. Here, his international classmates showed him English sports, including association football. In 1889, he moved to Karlsruhe to a grammar school and founded a football club here in the same year as well, the International Football Club. The new club bore the cosmopolitan, international football that Bensemann had become acquainted with in Montreux in its name. Where the players came from was irrelevant. The important thing was to play together. Two years later, he founded Karlsruher FV (and was involved in the founding of numerous other clubs, including FC Bayern München and Eintracht Frankfurt). Not only the two later Jewish national players Julius Hirsch and Gottfried Fuchs played here, but also the Strasbourg-born Ivo Schricker, later FIFA General Secretary. „Sport …

Video replay does not only exist since the introduction of VAR in football. The discussions about the use of technical aids in controversial or unnoticed scenes are already old – soon be 100 years. A short journey through time on the development of video replay in football The history of video replay is also a history of the use of photographic, video and television technology and especially the slow motion. The aim of the filmmakers of the interwar period was to show their technical skills and to give a visible impression to people who could not attend the sports event on location. In England, for example, it became a new business idea to question referee decisions at football matches using the new slow-motion technology and to create relevance and demand. For example, the final of the FA Cup 1932 was filmed between Newcastle United FC and Arsenal FC and the question of whether or not the ball was in front of the cross and the goal was in goal or not. The still image can …

A one-man show in football, but one that collapses just as quickly as it started. What fits the 60-hour European Super League is nothing new, but an old pattern. This is also the case one year later. In football, too, nothing is eaten as hot as it is cooked. Neither in 2021 the European Super League – nor in 1920 the founding of the first German professional club, to which the DFB reacted with a show of force by threatening all players and clubs involved with bans. The association wanted to maintain amateur status for football across all leagues. The threatening gesture worked. Only a few fans attended the only two games of the 1st German Professional Football Club Berlin and the main initiator, Otto Eidinger, went bankrupt. The DFB as preserver of „good old football“ in Germany 101 years ago, football in Germany really started to boom and to flush money into the coffers of the associations and club owners. The players wanted to get their share, but the DFB renewed its amateur statute …

The IFAB has announced the presumed changes in the Laws of the Game 2022/23, which still have to be confirmed by the General Assembly. Their meeting, originally scheduled for the beginning of March, was postponed indefinitely due to the war in Ukraine. The proposed amendments of the ABM (a meeting with all secretaries of the five associations) have now been published. These will most likely also receive the necessary majority. The deadline for the Laws of the Game 2022/23 is 1 July 2022. At the general assembly, rule changes are discussed and proposals submitted are decided by a three-quarters majority. The decision-makers are one representative from each of the four British football associations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) and four from FIFA (who must vote en bloc). The chairmanship rotates among the five associations annually, and normally the location rotates with it. In 2022, the AGM was held in Doha under the chairmanship of FIFA. The AGM agenda for the Laws of the Game 2022/23 The changes concerned the permanent increase of substitutions to 5 …

Here they are, the new Laws of the Game 2021/2022. Well, they haven’t been published yet, but they have been approved. A short summary has already been released, however. The IFAB today announced its changes for the football rules for the coming season. The deadline for the Laws of the Game 2021/2022 is 1 July 2021 (not 1 June as in the previous years), but competitions already in progress will continue to be played according to the Laws of the Game 2020/21. This means that the European Championship (m) will also be played according to the current law.

The traffic light card idea At the 1966 World Cup, German referee Rudolf Kreitlein tried unsuccessfully to send off Argentinean player Antonio Rattín. But Rattín either couldn’t or didn’t want to understand. He was a full head taller than referee Kreitlein (who was only 1.60m / 5ft 3in) and eventually had to be escorted off the pitch by the police. England were Argentina’s opponents in this quarter-final and asked for clarification on the situation. Ken Aston was in charge of all the referees at this World Cup and wondered how this language barrier could be overcome. He later said the idea came to him at a traffic light. Whether this explanation is true or just a nice story, we may never know. But it happened: The yellow card became a symbol of warning and the red card a symbol of dismissal. At first, there were no yellow or red cards in football, and there was no suspension after a certain number of yellow cards. What happened afterwards? However, the cards were not used immediately and …

Football technology has not been used in the game itself for very long. Football technology is becoming increasingly important. Football & technology have been together for 100 years. On the one hand, they have stimulated each other, on the other hand, they have led to discussions. For example, radio and television broadcasts contributed to the popularity of football and the enthusiasm for the sport had a positive effect on the media. On the other hand, discussions about slow motion in television broadcasts or the use of these as video evidence have been going on since the 1960s. Here is a brief overview: GLT (Goal line technology) After two years of intensive testing, The IFAB chose Hawkeye technology at a special meeting following the 2012 European Championship. At the next Annual General Meeting in spring 2013, The IFAB decided that each competition could decide to use GLT. The condition was that either all participating teams use GLT or none of them. If GLT is available, it must be used. Since 2016, the regulations on goal line …

Simon Rosenberger was a German referee and football pioneer and supporter with heart and soul, who was committed to the idea that the game of football and the rules should be interpreted in the same way throughout Germany at that time. He worked for the magazine Kicker with Walther Bensemann and the DFB, the German national association. The interpretation of the rules was a big problem in the 1920s, because not only the version of the Laws of the Game published by the DFB deviated from the international rules. No, the interpretation of the DFB rules also varied from regional association to regional association and also from referee to referee. Rosenberger encountered obstacles in his plans – not only among club officials and the press, but also within the referees. Born in Munich and a Jewish believer, Rosenberger worked in the first half of the 1920s in Stuttgart as a sport journalist for Kicker in Konstanz and Stuttgart, and in the second half as the founder and publisher of the DFB refereeing newspaper in Cologne. …

The Laws of the Game are the name of the football rules. The rules of the association football. Since 1858 the rules of Sheffield FC exist, since 1863 the FA Rules. In the beginning the laws contained only a few sentences, in the meantime there are several pages with several illustrations for clarification. The words of the Laws of the Game Which words were frequently used in the early years for the Laws of the Game? What are the latest ones for the 2020/21 season? How has the frequency changed over the many decades? The texts until 1924 are online in Wikisource, the remaining until 2020/21 I could determined by means of the annual editions of the Laws of the Game. In most editions the changed parts are marked. If the marking was missing in the booklet or if I was lacking the edition of the laws, then the minutes of the Annual General Meeting of The IFAB and my database with all changes specified there helped me. (I call this explicit because the amended …

The new mini-series by Julian Fellowes, The English Game, is available on Netflix since 20 March 2020. As already announced in the trailer, the story is based on true facts. But how much? . CN: Spoiler & Demytification (yes, the word demytification actually exists) . . . Football matches in English Game The game was in the FA Cup this season and the first game ended in a draw, the last one was won by the Old Etonians. However, a second draw was left out. This game was scheduled to be played three times. Based on the narrative, one could assume that Blackburn FC won the FA Cup in the 1879/80 season against the Old Etonians. However, no year is shown before the start of the match. For here Fellowes mixed a lot for the series final: In the 1870/80 season, Clapham Rovers won the FA Cup in the final against Oxford University, the Old Etonians lost to the eventual winner in the 5th round and Blackburn Rovers won against Darwen FC in the 2nd …

With his book „England’s Oldest Football Clubs“, published 2019, Martin Westby had created a very extensive collection of sources, which not only describes the various clubs in the early phase of football, but also the rules in some places. I bought and read them – and I think the number of my markings (only passages about football rules) speak for themselves. Source collection based on the Football Annual 1868-1908 In the introduction to his book, Martin told how it all began: in 2014, the book „Football Annual“ came into his hands, which for the four decades from 1868 to 1908 was to be published every year by all clubs. Every year the secretaries reported, among other things, the club’s responsible persons, the date of foundation and the type of game (rugby, association or other). – The four decades of the Football Annual have resulted in a database of 297 rugby clubs, 770 association clubs and numerous football clubs from, among others, school and military organisations (which often played according to their own rules). The 620-page …

Why don’t we have two referees on the football pitch instead of VAR? This sounds like a plausible idea that is worth thinking about. But it’s not a new idea. Not new at all Since the 19th century there have been repeated discussions and attempts to run the game with two referees on the field. Reasons were on the one hand to make the stoppage time for decisions shorter and on the other hand to have a „back-up“ to penalise fouls, which neither the referee nor his*her assistant referees noticed during other games. Two referees in Germany, 1920-1921 Already discussed before the First World War, the two referees system was tested directly after it in Germany. About 100 years ago, football became a mass phenomenon in Germany. During the war, soldiers had come to know and love the game. It was sponsored by the military as a military sport, as a pastime during the numerous interruptions in fighting. But this boom in the 1920s led to a great lack of experienced referees with comprehensive knowledge of the …

In Charles William Alcock’s short piece of writing The Book of Rules of the Game of Football, here online in a 1871 edition from New York, the well-known footballer of the first decades of the FA republished seven contemporary rules. For most of them it isn’t mentioned when the rules were lastly changed, but for some of them I could  trace it back. They are: FA Rules, 1870 Sheffield FA Rules, 1869 Eton Field Game, 1862 Winchester College, before 1871 Rugby School, between 1863 and 1870 Harrow School, before 1871 Cheltenham College, before 1871. In contrast to the comparisons published rules of the late 1840s, late 1850s, early 1860s and their comparison and my thoughts on it, in this post also rules with allowed handling and hacking are considered, viz. the rules of rugby (at the Rugby School in the 1860s) and mixed variants (Winchester College and Cheltenham College, partly also Eton Field Game). In this post I want to illustrate the diversity of the possibility football matches of the 1860s. Of course, today there are …

This article treat the founding period of the IFAB during the years 1882 to 1886. The International Football Association Board, or IFAB for short, discusses the football rules at the first of its two annual meetings in February or March each year. This is for its members, namely the associations of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (until 1921 Ireland) and all member associations of FIFA, which was founded in 1904. Not all FIFA members are represented, but four of them. The four FIFA representatives can only vote en bloc, the four representatives from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately. A two-thirds majority is required for rule changes so that neither FIFA nor the four founding members of the IFAB can outvote each other. Changes to the rules of the game will come into force on 1st July. The IFAB was founded in London on 2nd June 1886 by the associations of England (FA), Scotland (SFA), Ireland (IFA) and Wales (FAW). Already on 6th December 1882 there was a meeting of these four federations in …

In 1863 the FA was founded in London. The annual general meetings of the members [1]From 1876 an entrance fee of 5s was due; the annual fee until 1868 was 1 guinea, then another 5s – the latter was about the weekly wage of a worker. there was a board (chairman, secretary, treasurer) as well as a committee whose size changed in the first twenty years (1863: 4 – 1868: 10 – 1872: 17 – 1880: 16). The FA members were forbidden to play games against non FA members and to use other rules than the FA Rules. These were valid until 1874, from their decision in September (until 1865) and February (1866-1874) respectively. From 1874 they became valid at the beginning of the coming season in the autumn of the same year. In contrast to the evaluation of the Sheffield Rules, here I do not proceed chronologically, but (rule) thematically. I hope that this will make it easier for you to read. At this point I would also like to refer to the study …