Why soccer is so popular around the world

The worldwide popularity of soccer is undoubted. There is scarcely a corner of the globe in which the game is not played to a high standard and at a professional level. There are some notable exceptions, such as the United States and Australia, where, although the game is played, it is overshadowed by national sports that occupy the greater attention of players and spectators.

The finals of the four-yearly FIFA World Cup have been played on every continent except Australia. Competing nations have come from all over the world, and there are very few countries that do not have a national team.

The game is played by both men and women, and at every level from primary school to professional. It is truly the sport that just about all the world plays.

The reason for this popularity is not hard to work out, namely that it is a natural game to play.  If you roll a ball towards a young toddler who has just learned to walk, its first instinct might be to try to pick it up, but in doing so it is quite likely to kick it instead. The youngster soon discovers that a kicked ball will go further than a ball propelled by hand, and it is in any case easier to control where it goes. When he or she starts wearing shoes, the action of kicking a ball becomes painless, and fun to do.

The young child in the garden or the street will soon discover that kicking a ball towards a target is rewarding. You don’t always hit the target, so it is good fun to practice until you develop the techniques that improve your success rate. You may only be young, but you have a “goal” to aim for!

If you have a ball, your next discovery is that other kids want to kick your ball too. You can make marks on a wall, or put your coats down a few feet apart. One of you can stand in the way and try to stop the ball going between the coats or hitting the wall. It makes sense to let him use his hands for this job, but you need a rule that he is the only one. He can be the goalie, then.

Kids therefore discover that they can make friends if they let other kids play with their ball, and they can make up any rules they like to suit their circumstances, such as where the edges of the playing area are, and whose turn it is to ask for the ball back when it goes over somebody’s wall.

Because the game is so natural and easy to learn, it has developed anywhere that people want a game to play, have a bit of ground to play it on, and have nothing more sophisticated in the way of equipment than something round. Even an old tin can will do until somebody treads on it, and then you can always get another.

It is therefore played in the back streets of English towns, in the favelas of Brazilian cities and the dusty spaces between the huts in African villages. Some kids will prove to be better at aiming and passing a ball than others, and they will probably want to take the game a bit further, playing on a marked-out field with proper goals and a referee to settle any arguments. If they get really good, they might even make a living at it and end up playing for a professional club and eventually a national team.

Soccer therefore provides a way out of poverty for the most deprived of young people, and a real incentive to succeed. All you need is talent.

Play is a basic human instinct, and a ball is the simplest plaything one can imagine. Given that the action of kicking a ball is also so natural, and every human being the world over has a pair of feet, is it any wonder that soccer is the world’s favourite sport?

© John Welford