Football

In football two teams of eleven players try to put the ball into the opponents' goal using their feet, heads and bodies — but not their hands. More than 250 million people play the game today, and billions watch it.

History

Ball-kicking games existed in ancient China, Greece and Rome. Mahmud al-Kashgari's eleventh-century dictionary of the Turkic languages records a ball kicked with the foot under the name "tepük". The rules of modern football were written in England by the Football Association in 1863, and FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904.

Major competitions

National teams: the FIFA World Cup (since 1930, every four years; the 2026 edition in the USA, Canada and Mexico is the first with 48 teams), the FIFA Women's World Cup (since 1991), the Olympic football tournament (since 1900), the UEFA European Championship — EURO (since 1960), the UEFA Nations League (since 2018), the AFC Asian Cup (since 1956) and South America's Copa América (since 1916).

Clubs: the UEFA Champions League (founded in 1955 as the European Cup), the UEFA Europa League (founded in 1971 as the UEFA Cup), the UEFA Conference League (since 2021), the UEFA Super Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup and the AFC Champions League.

Leagues of the Turkic states: the Azerbaijan Premier League, Türkiye's Süper Lig (1959), Turkmenistan's Ýokary Liga, the Kazakhstan Premier League, the Kyrgyz Premier League, the Uzbekistan Super League, the KKTC Süper Lig (KTFF, 1955) and Hungary's NB I (1901). Kazakhstan has played in Europe (UEFA) since 2002, while Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan play in Asia (AFC).

Football in the Turkic world

Hungary's "Golden Team" was one of the greatest national sides of the twentieth century: Olympic champions in 1952, 6–3 winners over England at Wembley in 1953, and World Cup finalists in 1938 and 1954. Hungary also won Olympic gold in 1964 and 1968.

Türkiye finished third at the 2002 World Cup, reached the semi-finals of EURO 2008 and the quarter-finals of EURO 2024. In 2000 Galatasaray became the first Turkish club to win the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Super Cup.

Azerbaijan's Qarabağ became the country's first club to reach the Champions League group stage in 2017. Baku hosted the 2019 Europa League final and four matches of EURO 2020 in 2021. Kazakhstan's Astana (2015) and Kairat (2025) have also played in the main stage of the Champions League.

Uzbekistan qualified for the World Cup for the first time in its history for 2026; its under-23 team became Asian champions in 2018. Kyrgyzstan reached the round of 16 at its first Asian Cup in 2019, and Turkmenistan played at the Asian Cup in 2004 and 2019.

Famous Turkic footballers

Ferenc Puskás (84 goals in 85 games for Hungary; FIFA's award for the year's best goal bears his name), Hakan Şükür (the fastest goal in World Cup history — 11 seconds, 2002), Rüştü Reçber, Anatoliy Banishevskiy, Arda Güler, Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Kenan Yıldız and Eldor Shomurodov.