The object is simple and unchanged since 1863: score more goals than the opponent within the allotted time, using any part of the body except the arms and hands. A goal counts only when the whole of the ball has crossed the whole of the goal line between the posts and beneath the crossbar, with no prior infringement. The team with more goals when time expires wins; a level score is a draw unless the competition demands a winner.
Play is governed by the seventeen Laws of the Game, maintained since 1886 by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), on which the four British associations and FIFA share votes. On the field the referee is the sole authority, aided by two assistant referees, a fourth official, and — in most elite competitions — the Video Assistant Referee. Only the goalkeeper may handle the ball, and only inside their own penalty area.
Scoring at a glance
Core rules
The pitch and the ball
A full-size pitch runs roughly 100 to 110 meters long and 64 to 75 wide — deliberately a range, not a fixed size, so famous grounds differ in feel. Markings include the halfway line and center circle, two penalty areas (the 18-yard box), the smaller goal areas (6-yard box), a penalty spot 11 meters from goal, and the penalty arc. Goals are 7.32 meters wide and 2.44 high. Matches use a size-5 ball, 68 to 70 centimeters in circumference, inflated to a set pressure and checked before kickoff.
Kickoff and restarts
Each half and every goal is followed by a kickoff from the center mark. When the ball wholly crosses a touchline it is returned with a throw-in, taken with both feet grounded and the ball delivered from behind and over the head. Crossing the goal line produces a goal kick if an attacker touched it last, or a corner kick if a defender did. A dropped ball restarts play after any stoppage that had no other prescribed restart, given to the team that last touched the ball.
The offside law
An attacker is in an offside position if, when a teammate plays the ball, they are in the opponents' half and nearer the goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last defender. The position is not itself an offence: it is penalized only when the player becomes involved in active play — touching the ball, interfering with an opponent, or gaining an advantage from a rebound or deflection. Players level with the second-to-last defender are onside. There is no offside direct from a throw-in, corner or goal kick.
The goalkeeper and handling
Only the goalkeeper may handle the ball, and only inside their own penalty area. Since the 1992 back-pass law they may not handle a ball deliberately kicked to them by a teammate, nor one received direct from a teammate's throw-in; doing so concedes an indirect free kick. Once the keeper releases the ball from their hands they cannot pick it up again until an opponent touches it. Since 2019 a keeper needs only one foot on or in line with the goal line when a penalty is struck.
Substitutions
Most competitions permit up to five substitutions per team, made within three stoppages plus half-time, from a named bench — a permanent change after the temporary Covid-era relaxation of 2020. A substituted player cannot return, so managers weigh energy, tactics and game state carefully; late changes routinely decide tight matches. Many competitions add an extra permanent concussion substitute. Rolling substitutions survive only in youth and grassroots soccer, where returning to the field is allowed.
Free kicks and advantage
Careless, reckless or excessively forceful challenges concede a direct free kick, from which a goal may be scored directly; technical offences such as offside, dangerous play or obstruction concede an indirect free kick, which must touch another player before a goal counts. The referee may play advantage, letting play continue when the fouled team benefits, and return to the original foul only if the advantage fails to materialize within a few seconds. Defenders must retreat at least 9.15 meters (10 yards) from any free kick.
Penalty kicks
A direct-free-kick offence by a defender inside their own penalty area yields a penalty kick from the spot, 11 meters out, with only the goalkeeper defending. Every other player must stand outside the area and the arc, behind the ball, until it is struck. The taker may not play the ball twice, and the keeper must keep at least one foot on the line until contact. Penalties are converted around 75 to 80 percent of the time at elite level, making them among the game's most decisive single acts.
Cards and discipline
A yellow card cautions unsporting behavior, dissent, persistent fouling, time-wasting or a reckless challenge; a red card dismisses a player for serious foul play, violent conduct, spitting, denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, or a second yellow. A dismissed player leaves and is not replaced, forcing the team to play a man short. Accumulated yellow cards across matches trigger suspensions, and straight reds carry longer bans, adding a season-long layer of squad management to the sport's disciplinary code.
Fouls & penalties
Denial of a goal-scoring opportunity
When a defender denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a foul or deliberate handball, the sanction is severe. A goal-line handball or a cynical trip on a clean-through attacker draws a straight red. Since 2016's reform of 'double jeopardy', if the offence inside the penalty area was a genuine attempt to play the ball, the punishment is softened to a caution plus the penalty rather than a dismissal — outside the box, or for holding and pulling, the red still stands.
Handball
Deliberately handling the ball, or scoring with hand or arm, is an offence, and any goal scored via a handball is disallowed even if accidental. Interpretation turns on whether the arm is in an unnatural position that makes the body bigger; the law has been rewritten repeatedly and remains among the most contentious, with VAR forcing frame-by-frame scrutiny of arm position, distance and intent. A handball offence inside the box concedes a penalty.
Violent conduct and serious foul play
Using excessive force or brutality against an opponent, teammate or official — a stamp, elbow, headbutt or studs-up lunge — is an automatic red card, whether or not the ball is in play. Serious foul play specifically covers reckless challenges that endanger an opponent's safety in a contest for the ball. Both draw multi-match bans beyond the single dismissal, and violent conduct can be punished retrospectively from video even if missed live.
Simulation and time-wasting
Diving to win a foul or penalty is simulation, a cautionable act of unsporting behavior, and VAR can overturn penalties won by clear deception. Deliberately delaying the restart of play — dawdling over goal kicks, feigning injury, holding the ball from a throw — is likewise cautionable, and referees now add generous stoppage time to compensate. Persistent gamesmanship increasingly draws yellow cards as officials clamp down on the erosion of effective playing time.
Offside offence
When a player in an offside position becomes involved in active play, the defending team is awarded an indirect free kick at the point of the offence, with no card shown. Semi-automated offside technology, introduced at the 2022 World Cup, uses limb-tracking cameras and a sensor inside the ball to render decisions in seconds, sharply reducing the marginal, minutes-long reviews that had frustrated crowds and broadcasters alike.
Match format
A standard match lasts 90 minutes, split into two 45-minute halves with a half-time interval of up to 15 minutes; teams change ends at the break. Because the clock does not stop for interruptions, the referee adds stoppage (or injury) time at the end of each half to account for substitutions, injuries, celebrations, VAR checks and time-wasting — a practice that since the 2022 World Cup has routinely stretched added time past eight minutes per half in many competitions.
In league play a draw is a legitimate result and points are shared. In knockout ties that require a winner, a level score after 90 minutes leads to two 15-minute periods of extra time, and if still level, a penalty shoot-out — five kicks each, then sudden death — decides it. Some rounds are settled over two legs on aggregate; UEFA abolished the away-goals tiebreaker, long used to separate level aggregate scores, in 2021.
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