FIFA World Football Federation

Definition of FIFA

The International Football Association is defined as the supreme sports body responsible for supervising the game of football around the world, and it is known by the acronym FIFA (FIFA); This name came from the first letters of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) in French.

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association includes 211 national sports federations from around the world, and these federations are considered as representatives of FIFA in their countries; It is financially and technically supported by many different programs offered by this global organization.

National Football Associations fall under six continental confederations, namely:

UEFA; Which is known by the acronym (UEFA), the Asian Football Confederation; known by the acronym (AFC), the South American Football Confederation; known by the acronym CONMEBOL, the Confederation of African Football; (CAF), the North and Central American and Caribbean Confederation (CONCACAF), and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

The role of all these federations is to provide support to the FIFA organization, as they have the right to be represented in the FIFA organization through members who are elected to be in the executive committee of this sports organization.

At their discretion, both the national and the continental federations must recognize FIFA as the supreme governing body for the sport of football and the body responsible for setting the laws and rules of the game.

History of the International Football Association

The popularity of the game of football increased significantly in the early twentieth century, and the leaders of the national federations of this game in the continent of Europe felt that the need had become urgent to establish a special federation for the game and a supreme governing body for it; In order to keep pace with the increasing popularity of the game, hence the idea of founding the International Football Association Board; Where seven national federations, namely the federations of Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, met under the auspices of the French journalist Robert Guerin in the French capital, Paris, specifically at the headquarters of the French Football Federation on the twenty-first of May 1904 AD; To announce the establishment of FIFA, as the official body through which the relations between the various national football associations, players and officials throughout the world are strengthened.

The declaration of founding was accompanied by the establishment of a statute of a temporary nature, which provided for mutual recognition between the national federations participating in the founding of the federation, preventing players and clubs from playing for more than one national federation at the same time, and playing football matches in accordance with the laws of the federation that were limited at that time, and after If FIFA organizes football tournaments under the umbrella of the Olympic Games in 1924 and 1928, Jules Rimet, the third president of FIFA, saw that it was necessary to create a tournament exclusively for football, and accordingly what is known as the FIFA World Cup was established, which Its popularity has grown exponentially to become the most important sporting event around the world.

Responsibilities of FIFA

Fédération Internationale de Football Association, as the supreme administrative authority for this game, is entrusted with many matters that include various aspects of this sport; Where the federation must organize and set the laws that should be governed by the rules of playing in football, the federation also supervises the transfers of players from one team to another and sets standards for arbitration, training and even sports treatment methods, as well as focusing on encouraging and promoting the development of football around the world.

The International Federation also organizes many international tournaments in football, including the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, the U-20 World Cup, the Beach Soccer World Cup, the FIFA Five-a-Day Football World Cup, and the Club World Cup Confederations Cup, in addition to many other international tournaments.

FIFA Presidents

The position of Director of the International Football Association has witnessed a succession of many people since its establishment to this day, and the Swiss Gianni Infantino is the current president of FIFA; As he was appointed to this position in 2016, succeeding his predecessor, Joseph Blatter, and the following table shows the previous presidents who occupied the position of FIFA President, in addition to the years in which each of them continued in the position of President:

The name	Date of Birth	date of death	in position	leave office	Duration	Nationality
Robert Goren	june 28, 1876	march 19, 1952 (aged 75)	may 23, 1904	july 4, 1906	2 years and 12 days	France
daniel burley wolfl	june 15, 1852	october 24, 1918 (aged 66)	june 4, 1906	october 24, 1918(died)	12 years and 142 days	United Kingdom
Jules rimet	october 14, 1873	october 16, 1956 (aged 83)	march 1, 1921	june 21, 1954	33 years and 112 days	France
rudolf silders	december 16, 1876	october 7, 1955 (aged 78)	21 June 1954	october 7, 1955(died)	1 year and 108 days	Belgium
arthur drayori	march 3, 1891	march 25, 1961 (aged 70)	9 June 1956	march 25, 1961	4 years and 289 days	United Kingdom
stanley ross	april 25, 1895	july 18, 1986 (aged 91)	september 28, 1961	may 8, 1974	12 years and 222 days	United Kingdom
joao havelange	may 8, 1916	august 16, 2016 (aged 100)	may 8, 1974	june 8, 1998	24 years and 31 days	Brazil
blatter joseph	March 10, 1936(age 85)	still alive	June 8, 1998	October 8, 2015(impeached)	17 years and 122 days	Switzerland
(president's representative) eissa hayatou	August 9, 1946 (age 75)	still alive	October 8, 2015(acting))	February 26, 2016	141 days	Cameroon
gianni infantino	March 23, 1970 (age 51)	still alive	February 26, 2016	in office	5 years and 329 days	Switzerland / Italy