Football historians, those who have studied the game and its origins, place the game’s beginnings in rugby, an English game played with many similarities to football. Rugby began in eighteen twenty-three at the famous Rugby Boys’ School in England. Another cousin of the game of football is soccer; its beginnings can also be traced to English origin, being played as early as the eighteen twenties.

All football games involve scoring with a spherical or ellipsoidal ball (itself called a football), by moving the ball into, onto, or over a goal area or line defended by the opposing team. Many of the modern games have their origins in England, but many peoples around the world have played games which involved kicking and/or carrying a ball since ancient times.

The object of all football games is to advance the ball by kicking, running with, or passing and catching, either to the opponent's end of the field where points or goals can be scored by, depending on the game, putting the ball across the goal line between posts and under a crossbar, putting the ball between upright posts (and possibly over a crossbar), or advancing the ball across the opponent's goal line while maintaining possession of the ball.

In all football games, the winning team is the one that has the most points or goals when a specified length of time has elapsed.

The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much friendly controversy has occurred over the term football, primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region.

In some English-speaking countries, the word "football" usually refers to Association football, also known as "soccer" (the name was originally a slang abbreviation of Association). Of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, only four — Canada, New Zealand, Samoa and the United States — use soccer in their name, while the rest use football (although the Samoan Federation actually uses both, while New Zealand Soccer has recently decided to change its name, most likely to Football New Zealand [4]). In Australia, the governing body's renaming and increased usage of "football" rather than "soccer" (the name the majority of Australians still use) has caused controversy as the word "football" has traditionally been used to refer to Australian rules football and rugby league. It should be noted, however, that the Australian association football team are still known as the "Socceroos".