July 8, 2014

Documents that Changed the World: Rules of Association Football (soccer), 1863


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A recent New Yorker cartoon explains the game of soccer with disarming simplicity: “Here’s a ball. Try to get it in the goal. One rule: You may not use your hands. Go.”

As the final four nations vie for the 2014 World Cup title in Brazil, Joe Janes of the University of Washington Information School looked into the game’s history and rules for his Documents that Changed the World podcast series, and found nothing simple about them — thanks in part to the English.