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Make Eurosport your go-to source for sports news online, complete with full schedules, stats and live scores, from football to tennis, cycling, snooker and more. The governing bodies in each country operate league systems in a domestic season, normally comprising several divisions, in which the teams gain points throughout the season depending on results. Teams are placed into tables, placing them in order according to points accrued. Most commonly, each team plays every other team in its league at home and away in each season, in a round-robin tournament. At the end of a season, the top team is declared the champion.

A foul occurs when a player commits an offence listed in the Laws of the Game while the ball is in play. Handling the ball deliberately, tripping an opponent, or pushing an opponent, are examples of "penal fouls", punishable by a direct free kick or penalty kick depending on where the offence occurred. There are 17 laws in the official Laws of the Game, each containing a collection of stipulation and guidelines.

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The five top European leagues – the Bundesliga , Premier League , La Liga , Serie A , and Ligue 1 – attract most of the world's best players and each of the leagues has a total wage cost in excess of £600 million/€763 million/US$1.185 billion. The basic equipment or kit players are required to wear includes a shirt, shorts, socks, footwear and adequate shin guards. An athletic supporter and protective cup is highly recommended for male players by medical experts and professionals. Headgear is not a required piece of basic equipment, but players today may choose to wear it to protect themselves from head injury. Players are forbidden to wear or use anything that is dangerous to themselves or another player, such as jewellery or watches. The goalkeeper must wear clothing that is easily distinguishable from that worn by the other players and the match officials.

Each half runs continuously, meaning that the clock is not stopped when the ball is out of play. The referee is the official timekeeper for the match, and may make an allowance for time lost through substitutions, injured players requiring attention, or other stoppages. This added time is called additional time in FIFA documents, but is most commonly referred to as stoppage time or injury time, while lost time can also be used as a synonym.

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The score of a match cannot be altered after the game, even if later evidence shows that decisions (including awards/non-awards of goals) were incorrect. As the Laws were formulated in England, and were initially administered solely by the four British football associations within IFAB, the standard dimensions of a football pitch were originally expressed in imperial units. The Laws now express dimensions with approximate metric equivalents , though use of imperial units remains popular in English-speaking countries with a relatively recent history of metrication , such as Britain. A game is officiated by a referee, who has "full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match to which he has been appointed" , and whose decisions are final. In many high-level games there is also a fourth official who assists the referee and may replace another official should the need arise.

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The duration of stoppage time is at the sole discretion of the referee. Stoppage time does not fully compensate for the time in which the ball is out of play, and a 90-minute game typically involves about an hour of "effective playing time". In matches where a fourth official is appointed, towards the end of the half, the referee signals how many minutes of stoppage time they intend to add. The fourth official then informs the players and spectators by holding up a board showing this number. The signalled stoppage time may be further extended by the referee. Added time was introduced because of an incident which happened in 1891 during a match between Stoke and Aston Villa.

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The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning of the Croatian Independence War of the 1990s, when a match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade degenerated into rioting in May 1990. The world's oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which was founded by the footballer and cricketer Charles W. Alcock, and has been contested by English teams since 1872. The first official international football match also took place in 1872, between Scotland and England in Glasgow, again at the instigation of C.W. England is also home to the world's first football league, which was founded in Birmingham in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor. The original format contained 12 clubs from the Midlands and Northern England. The most prestigious competitions in European club football are the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Women's Champions League, which attract an extensive television audience throughout the world.