Football

Football - or soccer - is indisputably the most popular sport in the world. The game has been around for centuries, slowly but surely growing into the biggest gaming phenomenon the world has ever seen.

The first official football event took place in England during the mid-1800s, and from that moment on Europe has been the hub of professional football. League matches started being held in the 1860s, and a few years later the first official competitions began appearing across England. As time went by, several other European nations started creating their own competitions, and soon after the rest of the world began to catch on.

Today, there are countless football leagues in place around the globe, but the most popular still reside in Europe. The English Premier League, Spanish Primera League, Italian Serie A and German Bundesliga are all ranked within the top four football leagues in Europe.

Apart from standard national leagues, European football is a huge part of each season. Two UEFA-based competitions are held every season, bringing together the finest European clubs to challenge for the much sought after championship. The UEFA Champions League gathers together the best ranking clubs from the previous season, while the Europa League is a more open competition, allowing smaller nations such as Luxembourg and Malta to put forward qualifying clubs.

While it is obvious that national leagues are at the roots of modern football, it is international competitions that capture the attention of the entire world. Continental championships such as UEFA EURO, and the CONCACAF Gold Cup all pit the best nations from each continent against one another.

However, it is the World Cup that is the ultimate football event. The competition occurs every four years, though there is never a season of football where World Cup qualifying matches are not being contested. There have been 18 World Cup events since its inception in 1930, and the 19th will be hosted in South Africa, the 2010 World Cup. Only seven nations have claimed the prized World Cup, including England, Brazil, and Italy.

Football media has blossomed out of the success of the Internet, and most major football nations have their own dedicated news networks to follow to follow their own leagues, national teams, and the international community. Goal is one of the most successful and up-to-date news services, dedicated entirely to the world of football, as is Setanta Sports and The World Game.

Money has become a huge factor in football in recent years, most notably in the 2009 summer transfer window. Two clubs, Real Madrid and Manchester City, spent hundreds of millions of dollars within a few short weeks in order to purchase the world's best players. Real picked up Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema, and Xabi Alonso for more than US$300 million, while Manchester City spend just over US$150 million on players like Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, and Gareth Barry.

Football has been, and will continue to be, an integral part of global sport. It is one of the few games played professionally in every corner of the world, and has the ability to capture the attention of millions of fans; according to FIFA figures, more than 715.1 million viewers tuned into the 2006 World Cup final - a ninth of Earth's entire population.

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