By today's standards soccer is a fairly simple game. The game of Soccer or football has a small pamphlet of 50 pages that summarizes the 17 laws of the game. 50 pages may seem like a lot to cover the basic rules of a sport, but the rules of soccer in comparison to many other popular sports and games that have many 100's of pages in their rule books.
The Laws of the Game govern all national and international matches of popular soccer organizations. For comparison, American Football has over 30 sections in its rule book with a section dedicated to the coin toss. The 17 laws of soccer are listed below. They were set in place a long time back to create an international standard for the world's most popular sport.
The Organization in charge of making the rules of the world's most popular game is called International Football Association Board (IFAB) and is made up of representatives from the world's soccer clubs.
Law 1:The Field of Play
Law 2:The Ball
Law 3:The Number of Players
Law 4:The Players' Equipment
Law 5:The Referee
Law 6:The Assistant Referees
Law 7:The Duration of the Match
Law 8:The Start and Restart of Play
Law 9:The Ball In and Out of Play
Law 10:The Method of Scoring
Law 11:Offside
Law 12:Fouls and Misconduct
Law 13:Free Kicks
Law 14:The Penalty Kick
Law 15:The Throw-In
Law 16:The Goal Kick
Law 17:Corner kick
Soccer history goes back many centuries but the laws of the game were laid down almost 150 years. In 1863 a man named Ebenezer Cobb Morley drew up the Laws of Soccer. The Laws of the Game were then approved by the Football Association of FA. On the 5th of December 1863, the Laws were published for the first time in Bell's Life.
In the winter of 1882, representatives from some European soccer organizations came together and established a board. The board they created was the International Football Association Board (IFAB).
Until the forming of a Board, different countries had different rules and when countries played each other, they had to agree on which countries rules would be used causing confusion in the game. FIFA was founded in Paris, France in 1904. FIFA declared that all countries that are part of the organization would adhere to one set of Laws, the Laws set down by IFAB.
In 1913 FIFA representatives were admitted into IFAB and the popularity of the game of soccer had caused membership to climb in FIFA. Today FIFA has over 200 member countries with 4 representatives for them in IFAB.
Today, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) handles the Laws of the Game. Normally the IFAB meets every year to decide on any changes or amendments to the Laws. If any changes are made, those changes go into effect in the summer and the Law Book gets updated with changes taking immediate effect.
IFAB member organizations are:
England's Football Association (The FA)
Scottish Football Association (SFA)
Football Association of Wales (FAW)
Northern Ireland's Irish Football Association (IFA)
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
Each of the four soccer clubs has one representative and FIFA has four due to it's large size. What that means is that FIFA has a lot of power when it comes to making changes to the Laws of the Game. Since 6 votes are needed, no law can be changed without approval from FIFA. However, FIFA is not completely in charge, nor can they create their own Laws since a majority vote is needed.
Over the years many diagrams, explanations and other other materials have been added in. In 2007, the manual was restructured to include new sections outside of the main 17 Laws but still structured and organized by the 17 Laws. Much of the newer materials are meant as clarifications for referees on the 17 Laws.