20 Things You Never Knew About Footballs

  • The oldest inflatable football still in existence was manufactured by Charles Goodyear in 1855. The ball is made of vulcanised rubber panels and resembles a modern basketball.
  • The first design specifications for footballs were agreed and recorded by England’s Football Association in 1863.
  • The balls originally used for basketball were footballs. These retained the longitudinal panel design used in the first footballs long after football manufacturers had adopted hexagonal and pentagonal panels.
  • The inflatable rubber pouch on the inside of a modern football is called a bladder, a throwback to some of the earliest footballs which were made from inflated pig bladders.
  • Modern footballs are made up of 32 panels held together by 642 stitches.
  • The panel design used for the modern football is derived from the work of visionary architect Buckminster Fuller, and is described in geometry as a truncated isohedron.
  • The typical football panel design features 20 hexagonal panels and 12 pentagonal panels.
  • The football used in the most recent world cup featured an unusual panel design comprising 14 non-geometric panels.
  • The number of panels on a football influence how easily it can be curved when it is kicked. Balls with fewer panels are easier to curve due to the decreased aerodynamic stability of the ball.
  • Modern footballs comprise three constituents: a stitched casing, an internal lining and a rubber bladder.
  • Eight out of ten footballs are manufactured in Pakistan with almost two thirds of these produced in the Pakistani village of Sialkot.
  • Child labour was often used for football production until the Atlanta Agreement put a halt to this practice.
  • The best quality footballs must be stitched by hand, and only inferior quality balls are manufactured by machine.
  • Footballs for official use are required to be 68–70 cm in circumference, weigh 410–450 g and inflated to a pressure of 8–12 psi.
  • Modern footballs come in five sizes, with smaller varieties used for futsal and handball games, children’s football games and promotional footballs.
  • Professional football leagues make use of the size 5 football.
  • Cheaper footballs have a tendency to expand with age as the inferior stitching allows the panels to separate. These balls also absorb more water in wet weather, increasing their weight and decreasing their performance.
  • The Adidas sportswear company provides the footballs for the world’s biggest football tournaments including the FIFA World Cup and the European Championship.
  • Skilled players can strike a football at speeds of over 100km/h. This places players in the path of the ball at risk of injury, which has motivated research into creating lighter footballs.
  • It is estimated that there are over 10 million footballs in circulation throughout the world.

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