AMAZING Facts About FOOTBALL

•  Football was originated in China around 476 B.C. 
•  Football is the most watched and most played sport on earth.
•  Football is the most popular sport in the world. Approximately one billion fans watch Football World Cup on television.
•  The largest Football tournament had more than 5,098 teams. They competed in 1999 for the second Bangkok League Seven-a-Side Competition. Over 35,000 players participated.
  
• Stephan Stanis (France) playing for Racing Club de Lens in December 1942 scored 16  goals which was the maximum number of goals scored by one player in a single Football match.
•  Football goalies didn't have to wear different coloured shirts from their teammates until 1913.
•  Football players run an average of 9.65 kms during every game.
•  The World's First Football Club was the English Sheffield Football Club. It was founded in 1857 by Colonel Nathaniel Cresswick and Major William Priest, two British Army officers.
•  European Teams have reached every World Cup final, except for the finals of 1930 and 1950.  
•  The highest scoring game was clocked 149-0. Stade Olympique de L’emyrne, a team from Madagascar scored their own goals. They did it as a form of protest for the unfair decision by referee in the previous game.
•  The first black football player was Arthur Wharton in the 1800s.
•  Pele was the first to call football “the beautiful game”.
•  Only Canadians and Americans call football as “soccer”
•  In 1964, a referee’s call during a football match in Peru caused a riot that killed over 300 people.
•  In 1998, lightening killed an entire football team. The catastrophe occurred in Congo during a match between the villages of Bena Tshadi and nearby Basangana.