Australian rules football in the context of "Modern codes of football"

A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby league, and rugby union.

It has been estimated that there are 250 million association football players in the world, and many play other forms of football.

Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football generally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football (known as soccer in Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States, and sometimes in Ireland and New Zealand); Australian rules football; Gaelic football; gridiron football (specifically American football, arena football, or Canadian football); International rules football; rugby league football; and rugby union football. These various forms of football share, to varying degrees, common origins and are known as "football codes".There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century, itself an outgrowth of medieval football. The expansion and cultural power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside the directly controlled empire. By the end of the 19th century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, the Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football associations. During the 20th century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world.

Sports injuries occur during participation in sports or exercise in general. Globally, around 40% of individuals engage in some form of regular exercise or organized sports, with upwards of 60% of US high school students participating in one or more sports. Sports injuries account for 15 - 20% of annual acute care visits with an incidence of 1.79 - 6.36 injuries per 1,000 hours of participation. Sports injuries can be broken down into the types of injuries, risk factors and prevention and the overall impact that injuries have on athletes.

Most forms of football have a move known as a tackle. The primary purposes of tackling are to dispossess an opponent of the ball, to stop the player from gaining ground towards goal or to stop them from carrying out what they intend.

The word is used in some contact variations of football to describe the act of physically holding or wrestling a player to the ground. In others, it simply describes one or more methods of contesting for possession of the ball. It can therefore be used as both a defensive or attacking move.

A contact sport is any sport where physical contact between competitors, or their environment, is an integral part of the game. Examples include gridiron football, martial arts, and acrobatic sports. Contact may come about as the result of intentional or incidental actions by the players in the course of play. This is in contrast to noncontact sports where players often have no opportunity to make contact with each other and the laws of the game may expressly forbid contact. In contact sports some forms of contact are encouraged as a critical aspect of the game such as tackling, while others are incidental such as when shielding the ball or contesting an aerial challenge. As the types of contact between players is not equal between all sports they define the types of contact that is deemed acceptable and fall within the laws of the game, while outlawing other types of physical contact that might be considered expressly dangerous or risky such as a high tackle or spear tackle, or against the spirit of the game such as striking below the belt or other unsportsmanlike conduct. Where there is a limit as to how much contact is acceptable most sports have a mechanism to call a foul by the referee, umpire or similar official when an offence is deemed to have occurred.

Contact sports are categorised by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) into three main categories: contact, limited-contact and noncontact. In attempting to define relative risk for competitors in sports the AAP have further defined contact sports as containing some element of intentional collision between players. They define such collision sports as being where: "athletes purposely hit or collide with each other or with inanimate objects (including the ground) with great force", while in limited-contact sports such impacts are often "infrequent and inadvertent". While contact sports are considered the most high risk for injury, in some sports being a major feature (such as boxing or other martial arts), limited-contact and noncontact sports are not without risk as injury or contact may come about as a result of a fall or collision with the playing area, or a piece of sporting equipment, such as being struck by a hockey stick or football or even a piece of protective wear worn by a teammate or opposition player.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the eleventh-largest stadium globally and the second-largest cricket stadium by capacity. The MCG is within walking distance of the Melbourne CBD and is served by Richmond and Jolimont railway stations, as well as the route 70, 75 and 48 trams. It is adjacent to Melbourne Park and is an integral part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct.

Since it was built in 1853, the MCG has undergone numerous renovations. It served as the main stadium for the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, as well as hosting two Cricket World Cup finals: 1992 and 2015. Noted for its role in the development of international cricket, the MCG hosted both the first Test match and the first One Day International, played between Australia and England in 1877 and 1971, respectively. It has also maintained strong ties with Australian rules football since its codification in 1859, and has become the principal venue for Australian Football League (AFL) matches, including the AFL Grand Final, the world's highest attended league championship event.

A rugby ball is an elongated ellipsoidal ball used in both codes of rugby football. Its measurements and weight are specified by World Rugby and the Rugby League International Federation, the governing bodies for both codes, rugby union and rugby league respectively.

The rugby ball has an oval shape, four panels and a weight of about 400 grams. It is often confused with some balls of similar dimensions used in American, Canadian and Australian football.