Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is the world’s governing body for association football. The organization was founded on May 21, 1904, in Paris, France, and was developed following the model of the English Football Association that had been set up in 1863 to govern the game in England (see History of Association Football). The remit of FIFA was initially to look after the interests of the game as it spread internationally and to organize official matches between teams from opposing nations. Representatives from France, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden convened at the inaugural meeting. The English Football Association recognized it and joined in 1905. The first president was the Frenchman Robert Guerin.

The popularity of the game quickly spread, especially in South America where Argentina and Chile joined in 1912. Following FIFA’s success in organizing the Olympic Games football tournament of 1928, the body decided to organize its own tournament—the World Cup—to be held in Uruguay. Unfortunately for the organizers, only four competing nations from Europe managed the long journey to South America for the 1930 event.

Today, FIFA rules on all matters relating to international football and the changing laws of the game (FIFA introduced the penalty shoot-out as a way of deciding knockout matches that had finished in stalemate). FIFA also stages many of the world’s premier cup tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups, the FIFA Confederations Cup, the under-17 and under-20 world tournaments, the World Indoor Championship (Futsal), the World Club Championship, whose inaugural event was held in Brazil in January 2000, and the Beach Soccer World Cup, first played in May 2005.

Football worldwide is organized by various confederations that exist alongside FIFA: the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) in Asia; CAF (Confédération Africaine de Football) in Africa; CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) in North and Central America, and the Caribbean; CONMEBOL (Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol) in South America; OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) in Oceania; and UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) in Europe.

FIFA is headed by a president; past incumbents of the post have included Jules Rimet (1921-1954) and Sir Stanley Rous (1961-1974). In 1998 Switzerland’s Joseph Sepp Blatter was elected as the successor to Dr João Havelange of Brazil as the eighth FIFA president. FIFA presently has 207 member nations.