From Elite Boarding Schools to Global Phenomenon: The Complex Origins of Soccer

Far removed from its current status as a global juggernaut, soccer was born in the well-heeled boarding schools of 19th-century England. Over the past two centuries, the sport has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon that connects fans across every continent. It also serves as a deeply nationalist affair during the World Cup, pitting teams and their supporters from various nations against one another. Yet, this highly competitive professional sport has far more local and social origins. As an expert on global history and author of a 2025 book on the subject, I can attest that the game’s roots date back to early 19th-century England and a very specific social cause. Understanding these origins requires looking beyond the modern pitch to the elite institutions that shaped the game’s early identity.

When English high school students and teachers created football as a distinct sport in the first decades of the 19th century, their primary goal was to provide students at prestigious elite schools, such as Eton, with an opportunity to let off steam. Students at these private boarding schools, known as public schools in the United Kingdom, came almost exclusively from wealthy families. They were sent to these institutions not only for their academic education but also for socializing with peers from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. However, these boarding school students were often difficult to manage. Overprivileged students frequently viewed teachers and headmasters not as authority figures but as individuals of lower social standing. Rebellions were common, often pitting spoiled students against helpless teachers who struggled to maintain discipline.

Soccer emerged as a practical solution to this behavioral crisis. A strenuous physical activity, such as kicking a ball across a large field, appeared to teachers as an effective means to regain control over their students and redirect their boundless energies. Ballgames that pitted two groups of people against each other were nothing new in Britain. "Folk football" existed long before it became a structured school sport. These early ballgames were unregulated, raucous, and violent encounters between inhabitants of two villages or neighborhoods. They did not necessarily involve an actual ball but rather an object that could be kicked across a field or through the streets of a town. Such events have little in common with modern-day soccer. They could involve hundreds of people. Playing fields were not marked. The goal was to kick the ball once across a marker, such as a hedge or a field line. These ballgames were not about scoring points but about taking on the opposing team by all means available. Such sporting affairs were known to anyone in England in the first half of the 19th century.

The games migrated from village streets to school grounds. At Rugby School, a public school in central England whose name was later given to the modern game of rugby, students in the 1820s began playing a game that involved the kicking of a ball. Students engaged in these games because they gave them tremendous freedom. The game was not yet codified, and teachers let students organize games without interfering in their play. Football offered both students and teachers what they craved most. Paradoxically, what for students was freedom was for teachers a useful means of control. Teachers allowed the game to become a cherished activity because it took the students’ minds off other temptations. Tired and exhausted students, teachers reasoned, were good students who abstained from committing mischief and sexual behavior they deemed inappropriate.

Since the game lacked rules, and teachers kept a hands-off attitude, it gave students an opportunity to make their own rules. These rules were the result of collective decisions by students. From the 1840s to the 1860s, students produced rules that regulated how the ball could be handled, how many members a team should have, and how scores were counted. Students at Rugby School were the first to codify the game. Their rules of 1844 allowed players to use their hands for controlling the ball. The rules produced by students at Eton in 1847, by contrast, outlawed the use of hands for propelling the ball. However, these were just a few of the many sets of football rules that students wrote in the three decades from the 1840s to the 1860s. These codes did not yet clearly distinguish between a game focused on propelling the ball with hands, a key aspect of modern rugby, versus a game focused on using only one’s feet, a key aspect of soccer.

The result was a great diversity of rules for a game that high school students played for fun. However, the game, which was mandatory for all high school students, was also used as an instrument of institutionalized bullying of younger students by older ones. Physical attacks on younger students were built into the game. In effect, football of this time was a participation sport without any spectators. Students played games on meadows and fields in the near surroundings of the public schools. These playing fields often did not have markings for borders or goals. Walls, trees, and bushes marked the borders. Gates and doors were used as goals. This lack of standardization created a fragmented sporting landscape where different schools played vastly different versions of the same fundamental game.

Public school graduates took their versions of the game with them to the next level. At Cambridge University, students began in 1837 to iron out some of the modern-day rules. There, three iterations of unified football rules were created over the course of the next 19 years. The third set in 1856 culminated in a game of kicking a ball with one’s foot. This period marked a crucial transition from informal schoolyard play to a more structured university sport. The efforts at Cambridge laid the groundwork for the formalization that would soon follow in the wider football community. It was no longer just about letting off steam; it was about establishing a consistent framework for competition.

In 1863, representatives of football clubs from the larger London area met to discuss the formation of a football association and a common set of rules. Ebenezer Cobb Morley, who served as captain of the London-based Barnes Football Club, convinced the other participants to accept unified rules that banned the use of hands for propelling the ball. The 1863 rules of the Football Association stipulated that players were not permitted to "carry the ball," to "throw the ball," nor "to take the ball from the ground with his hands while it is in play." These rules provided the basis for modern-day soccer. This meeting was pivotal because it separated the "association football" that would become soccer from the "rugby football" that retained the use of hands. The decision to ban handling the ball created a distinct identity for the sport, setting it apart from its cousins.

The London rules of 1863 did not replace existing football rules, and these rules did not find acceptance everywhere. The 1863 London meeting did not include representatives of the public schools that were resolved to continue playing football according to their traditional rules. Rather than unifying football regulation, the London variant added just one more set of rules to the existing patchwork. However, the London meeting showed a maturing game. The participants did not come from boarding schools but from football clubs that had formed independently of public schools. These participants were not teenagers but adults. Morley was 32 years old when he presided over the meeting that had become necessary because football was transforming into a competitive sport that pitted teams of different football clubs against each other. For such competitive games, unified rules were needed to ensure fair play and consistent outcomes.

In 1872, the honorary secretary of the Football Association, Charles W. Alcock, suggested the creation of the Football Association Challenge Cup Competition. The introduction of this tournament helped transform football from pure enjoyment into a competitive sport, first played by amateurs and later by professionals. With growing crowds of spectators came stadiums. The demand for organized competition drove the rapid expansion of the sport. Clubs began to recruit players, and the line between amateur enjoyment and professional ambition began to blur. The social structure of the game shifted from the hierarchical classroom to the public arena.

That is the kind of highly professionalized and dynamic game that will feature in the World Cup. It is a far cry from the chaotic boarding school pitches of 19th-century England. The transformation from a tool for controlling elite boys to a global spectacle illustrates the power of sport to evolve beyond its original intent. While the origins lie in the privileged halls of English public schools, the game has since embraced the world, shedding its exclusive roots to become a universal language. The journey from Eton and Rugby to the global stage is a testament to the adaptability and enduring appeal of football. It remains a sport defined by both its complex history and its boundless potential for connection.