ORIGIN
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world and is known in most countries as football. Soccer was originally called “kick the Danes head.” It Started in the 11th century after the Dane invasion, when workers around a work site started kicking a Danes head around. In the 12th century, the game was then commonly named as football, it got more standardized rules and was confined to more vacant areas. It was banned from England in the late 12th century, and not legalized again until the early 1600 by King James I. At that point in history, soccer was more of a folk custom in England than a global popular sport.
DIFFUSION
Soccer transcended from an English folk custom to a global popular culture phenomenon in the 1800s. Clubs and other recreation clubs were made in the UK. As leisure time increased, it allowed people to participate in sporting events and also allowed people to watch them. It became a popular sport quickly and in 1863 British football clubs formed an association to organize and set up professional leagues. Turning soccer into an official structure in the U.K. basically marked the transition of football from folk to popular culture. It was mainly spread through relocation diffusion. In the early 1800’s, the British spread association football around the world, first in Europe, including the Netherlands, Spain, and Russia, then to the other countries. In the 20th century, soccer was getting diffused by technology mostly by TV and radio.
DISTRIBUTION
Soccer is distributed around the world, but primarily along the Americas, Europe, Asia, part of Africa, and Australia. Even today, soccer is still growing in popularity in the few places it's not very common. Although in America and Canada it is not the dominated sport, in Mexico it is very common everywhere. In South America, it is most favorite game of people of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador,Paraguay and Uruguay. The bigger and more popular leagues include La liga, the Spanish league, Barclays premier league, which is the English league, and Bundesliga, which is the German league.
