- A game consists of two 45-minute halves and a 15-minute intermission.
- A minimum of 7 players are needed for a match, and each team needs at least 11 players.
- On the pitch, grass must be artificial or natural. Although there is some flexibility in pitch sizes, they must be between 100 and 130 yards long and 50 and 100 yards wide. Out-of-bounds, two six-yard boxes, two 18-yard boxes, and a center circle must all be placed in a rectangle on the pitch’s boundary. There must also be a visible penalty area 12 yards away from the goals and the center circle.
- The ball must be 58–61 cm in circumference and have a round shape.
- The opportunity to name up to seven substitute players is available to each team. Each team is allowed a maximum of three replacements, which can be made at any time during the game. The team will play without a replacement if all three reserves are deployed, and a player needs to leave the field due to injury.
- Each game needs a referee and two assistant referees (linesmen). The referee’s responsibility is timekeeping and required decisions regarding fouls, free kicks, throw-ins, penalties, and additional time at the end of each half.
- The referee and assistant referees may consult at any time throughout the game. The role of the assistant referee is to identify offsides during play (see below), throw-ins for either team and, when needed, to support the referee in all decision-making procedures. After the allocated 90 minutes, if a game goes to extra time because both teams are tied, there will be 30 minutes added in the form of two 15-minute halves.
- A penalty shootout is required if the score is level at the end of extra time.
- To be scored, the entire ball must cross the goal line.
- Depending on the severity of the foul, a player may receive a yellow or red card; the referee has the final say. A red card results in the player’s dismissal, whereas a yellow card serves as a warning. A player who has been sent off cannot be substituted; one red card is equivalent to two yellow cards.
- A throw-in is given when an opponent on one sideline knocks a ball out of play. If it comes from an attacking player on the baseline, it is a goal kick; if it comes from a defender, it is a corner kick.
The offside rule is a regulation in football.
Offside may be deemed to have occurred when a pass was made to an attacking player before the last defender. The objective of the offside zone is to discourage players from just waiting for a ball close to the opposing goal. They must be positioned behind the final defender to be onside when the ball is played. The player is deemed offside, and the other team is given a free kick if he is in front of the final defender.
A player cannot be caught offside while in their half; additionally, the goalkeeper is not recognized as a defender, and if the ball is thrown backward and in front of the final defender, the player is not deemed offside.
Professionalism
The development of modern football in Victorian Britain was closely related to industrial and urbanization trends. In favor of new kinds of group entertainment, most of the new working-class inhabitants of Britain’s industrial towns and cities increasingly abandoned traditional rural pastimes like badger-baiting. As Saturday afternoons became more and more accessible for industrial workers starting in the 1850s, many of them flocked to the emerging sport of football to watch or participate in it. Key urban institutions like churches, labor unions, and schools established recreational football teams out of working-class boys and men. Growing adult literacy increased newspaper coverage of organized sports. Football players and supporters could simultaneously travel to games thanks to transportation facilities like railroads and urban trams. Football’s hegemony has lowered widespread interest in other sports, especially cricket.
