The Football Association (the FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the amateur and professional game in its territory.
The FA facilitates all competitive football matches within its remit at national level, and indirectly at local level through the county football associations. It runs numerous competitions, the most famous of which is the FA Cup. It is also responsible for appointing the management of the men's, women's, and youth national football teams.
The FA is a member of both UEFA and FIFA and holds a permanent seat on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) which is responsible for the Laws of the Game. As the first football association, it does not use the national name "English" in its title. The FA is based at Wembley Stadium in London. The FA is a member of the British Olympic Association, meaning that the FA has control over the men's and women's Great Britain Olympic football team.
All of England's professional football teams are members of the Football Association. Although it does not run the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, it has veto power over the appointment of the league chairman and chief executive and over any changes to league rules. The English Football League, made up of the three fully professional divisions below the Premier League, is self-governing, subject to the FA's sanctions.
It was in England where the first official Association with clear rules was formed. For centuries before the first meeting of the Football Association in the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London on 26 October 1863, there were no universally accepted rules for playing football. In 1862, Ebenezer Cobb Morley, as captain of Barnes, wrote to Bell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for the sport "with the object of establishing a definite code of rules for the regulation of the game"; the letter led to the first meeting at The Freemasons' Tavern that created the FA in 1863. Morley was a founding member. Six meetings near London's Covent Garden, at 81–82 Long Acre, ended in a split between the Association football and Rugby football. Both of them had their own uniforms, rituals, gestures and highly formalised rules.
In public school games, the rules were formalised according to local conditions; but when the schoolboys reached university, chaos ensued when the players used different rules, so members of the University of Cambridge devised and published a set of Cambridge Rules in 1848 which was widely adopted. Another set of rules, the Sheffield Rules, was used by a number of clubs in the North of England from the 1850s.
Eleven London football clubs and schools' representatives met on 26 October 1863 to agree on common rules. The founding clubs present at the first meeting were:
Forest of Leytonstone (later to become Wanderers F.C.),
N.N. (No Names) Club (Kilburn),
Blackheath Proprietary School.
Charterhouse sent their captain, B.F. Hartshorne, but declined the offer to join. Many of these clubs are now defunct or still play rugby. Civil Service FC, who now plays in the Southern Amateur League, is the only one of the original eleven football clubs still in existence, with an unbroken history, and playing association football, although Forest School has been a member since the fifth meeting in December 1863. Both Barnes and Wanderers have been re-established as football clubs in the modern era.
Ebenezer Cobb Morley was the FA's first secretary (1863–66) and its second president (1867–74) and drafted the Laws of the Game generally called the "London Rules" at his home in Barnes, London. He played in the first-ever match in 1863.
The first version of the rules for the modern game was drawn up over a series of six meetings held in The Freemasons' Tavern from October to December. Of the clubs at the first meeting, Crusaders, Surbiton and Charterhouse did not attend the subsequent meetings, replaced instead by the Royal Navy School, Wimbledon School and Forest School.
At the final meeting, F. M. Campbell, the first FA treasurer and the Blackheath representative, withdrew his club from the FA over the removal of two draft rules at the previous meeting, the first which allowed for the running with the ball in hand and the second, obstructing such a run by hacking (kicking an opponent in the shins), tripping and holding. Other English rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA but instead in 1871 formed the Rugby Football Union. The term "soccer" dates back to this split to refer to football played under the "association" rules. After six clubs had withdrawn as they supported the opposing Rugby Rules, the Football Association had just nine members in January 1864: Barnes, Kilburn, Crystal Palace, War Office (Civil Service), Forest Club, Forest School, Sheffield, Uppingham and Royal Engineers (Chatham).
An inaugural game using the new FA rules was initially scheduled for Battersea Park on 2 January 1864, but enthusiastic members of the FA could not wait for the new year: the first game under F. A. rules was played at Mortlake on 19 December 1863 between Morley's Barnes team and their neighbours Richmond (who were not members of the FA), ending in a goalless draw. The Richmond side were obviously unimpressed by the new rules in practice because they subsequently helped form the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The Battersea Park game was the first exhibition game using FA rules, and was played there on Saturday 9 January 1864. The members of the opposing teams for this game were chosen by the President of the FA (A. Pember) and the Secretary (E. C. Morley) and included many well-known footballers of the day. After the first match according to the new FA rules a toast was given "Success to football, irrespective of class or creed".
Another notable match was London v Sheffield, in which a representative team from the FA played Sheffield FC under Association rules in March 1866; Charles Alcock described this game as "first [match] of any importance under the auspices of the Football Association". Alcock (of Harrow School) of the Wanderers was elected to the committee of the FA in 1866, becoming its first full-time secretary and treasurer in 1870. He masterminded the creation of the Football Association Cup—the longest-running association football competition in the world—in 1871. Fifteen participating clubs subscribed to purchase a trophy. The first Cup Final was held at The Oval on 16 March 1872, fought between the Wanderers and the Royal Engineers (RE), watched by 2,000 spectators. In 1874 Francis Marindin became the third president of the Football Association.
As football grew in popularity, it also began to take root in youth communities. In 1875, a Hanover Institute team (founded by Quintin Hogg, supported by fellow Old Etonian Arthur Kinnaird) was involved in an early attempt to incorporate football into the regular activities of a youth club, organising a match with boys from St Andrew's Home in Soho.
After many years of wrangling between the London-based Football Association and the Sheffield Football Association, the FA Cup brought the acceptance that one undisputed set of laws was required. The two associations had played 16 inter-association matches under differing rules; the Sheffield Rules, the London Rules and Mixed Rules. In April 1877, those laws were set with a number of Sheffield Rules being incorporated. In 1890, Kinnaird replaced Major Francis Marindin, becoming the fourth president of the Football Association. Kinnaird had at that time been a FA committeeman since the age of 21, in 1868. Kinnaird remained president for the next 33 years, until his death in 1923.