Football Rules and Positions

What is the most popular sport in the world? Even a newborn also answer this question. Yes. It is football. Although it is the most popular sport, most of us do not know about how the things happen in the middle.

The thing most of us know about football is that when you hit the football to go through the opposite team’s goal, you score. It is not enough to know about your favorite game. You should know about the football rules and the positions where players stand in order to understand the game. So let’s have some knowledge of football rules and positions.

Football Rules

Football is played with eleven players aside and most of the time there are 15 players in the squad. When it comes to the football rules, it is important to know who make these rules. Football rules are a responsibility of International football association board. They are the ones who control the rules by implementing new ones and removing available ones. Following are some of the football rules that you can use to understand the game.

A football match has two halves, each of 45 minutes with a 15 minute resting time in between them.
Each team consists of eleven players with a goalkeeper who is the only player to handle the ball inside the 18-yard box and a minimum of 7 players should be there to continue a match.
- Eg-: Assume that a player had to leave the field due to an injury or due to a red card (Will be discussed later in the article), minimum of 7 players should be fit and legal for the continuation of the match.
There should be one referee and two assistant referees who are known as linemen to control a football match. It is the referee’s responsibility to make decisions such as free kicks, penalties, corners, throw-ins, adding time in each half and many other. He can always get the assist of linesmen when making a decision and linesmen are responsible for spotting offsides (will be discussed later) in a match.
A player can receive either red or yellow card for the fouls they made in the field. The yellow card is for the warning and red card is for the dismissal of the player. Two yellow cards equal for receiving a red card and once a player receives his second red card, he has to go off the field. Players who are sent off the field can’t be replaced.
If the both teams’ scores are level, then the match can head to an extra time of 30 minutes in the form of two 15 minutes halves after the end of allocated 90 minutes.
If teams have scored the same after the end of the extra time, a penalty shootout should happen.
Offside Rule: Offside can be called if the attacking player is in front of the last defender of the opposite side when the pass is played. Goalkeeper is not considered as a defender and a player cannot be called offside when he is in his own half.

Football Positions

Goalkeeper – He is the most defensive player in the field and he is responsible for preventing another side from scoring goals. He is the only player who can touch the ball by hand in the field and play a huge part in a football match.
Back (Defender) – There are three defender(Back) positions; center-back, sweeper and wing-back. These ones are playing behind the midfielders and they are responsible for assisting the team by preventing the oppositions scoring goals.
Midfielder – These are the players who can be seen in the middle of defenders and attackers. There are four types of midfielders; center midfield, defensive midfield, attacking midfield and wide midfield. Their responsibility is to keep the possession of the ball and get the ball from defenders and pass it to strikers so that they can score goals.
Forward – These are the players who are responsible for scoring goals because they play closest to the oppositions’ goal. There are 3 types of forwards; Center forward, second striker and winger. Usually, these players are faster and aggressive when compared to other players.

These are the main football positions in the game and each player has his own duty to do in the game if they need to win.

FIFA

FIFA is referring to Federation Internationale de Football Association which is the international governing body of association football, futsal and beach football. This organization is responsible for the organization of major football tournaments such as the FIFA world cup and their promotional activities.

FIFA was established in 1904 and the headquarters of FIFA is situated in Zurich. There are 211 national associations as the members of FIFA and all of them are members of one of the six regional confederations.

Although they are not the ones who making football rules, they are the ones who rule football.

UEFA

The Union of European Football Association is the administrative body of football in Europe. This was found in 1954 and the headquarters of the UEFA is established in Nyon, Switzerland. There are 55 national association members in UEFA and it is one of the six continental confederations of football governing body FIFA.

UEFA controls and they are responsible for the nation and club competitions including the UEFA Europa League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and UEFA European Championship. UEFA is the organization who controls the prize money, rules and regulations and the media rights of this competition.

So you should get an idea about how the things are happening inside the football field and what are the organizations bound for the development and administration of the game.