Kicking Things off: The Chinese Origins of the Global Game

No sport in the world stirs as much passion as football. With the dramatic conclusion of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar on December 18, football, the world’s favorite sport, once again dominated global headlines. While most people around the world are quite familiar with the global superstars who plied their trade on the pitches of Doha over the past month, comparatively few know that football originated in ancient China.The game is called cuju 蹴鞠, where cu means kick, and ju refers to a leather ball stuffed with feathers; and in 2004, cuju was recognized by FIFA, football’s governing body, as the world’s earliest form of football.