The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is underway, with billions of people across the globe tuning in to watch the world's most popular sporting spectacle.

So what are the origins of soccer—a sport which now has five billion followers around the globe, according to FIFA—and how far back do games like this date?

Which country invented soccer?

The earliest version of a game resembling soccer for which we have evidence is cuju, which was played in a wide variety of forms across China for centuries. Sources indicate that a kicking game of some kind was played in China as early as the fourth century B.C., although cuju likely became more formalized under the Han dynasty around the second century B.C.

Cuju existed in many different varieties and could be played for competitive or purely aesthetic reasons, in teams or individually. These different versions involved the kicking of a ball, which was usually made from leather and filled with feathers. In competitive versions, two opposing teams would pass the ball around between them, without it touching the ground, before kicking it through a target in the court.

"Over time, the game evolved further, but in terms of sports that we can identify through source materials cuju is the earliest kicking game for which we have documentation," Zachary Bigalke, a researcher focused on the history and philosophy of sport at Penn State's College of Health and Human Development, told Newsweek.

"From China, cuju spread across borders and evolved into local variants of kicking games in Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia."

While cuju is the earliest documented kicking sport, that does not mean kicking games were unknown before its appearance.

Indigenous groups in Australia date the origins of their own kicking game, known as marn gook, several millennia ago, although there is a lack of contextual evidence to pinpoint the time of its origins. Despite this, Bigalke said it is likely that marn gook arose independently around the same time as cuju did in China.

Aside from the games played in China and Australia, other notable examples of ancient ball games that restricted the use of the hands are found throughout Mesoamerica, a cultural region that comprised parts of modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Ball games have a long history in Mesoamerica, stretching back millennia, and played a key role in the political, social and ritual life of the civilizations that populated this region.

But unlike cuju and related games, which were played with the feet, players of the Mesoamerican ball games propelled the ball using their hips. The balls that were used bounced, given that they were made from locally sourced rubber, which is native to the region.

"Mythological accounts posit that their unique sport originated several thousand years in the past, and remnants of the ball courts can be found throughout Central America," Bigalke said.

The ancient Greeks and Romans also had ball games, although these were primarily played with the hands. These sports largely took a back seat to the Olympic Games and gladiatorial contests, although there is evidence that they formed part of everyday life.

"The Hellenic games of episkyros and phaininda and the Roman version known as harpastum all involved throwing and catching in some form, which would make them the ancient forebears of other football codes like rugby and the gridiron version found in the United States, rather than prototypes of soccer," Bigalke said.

"Overall, these sports likely had little influence on soccer as we know it today, though they demonstrate the universal appeal of games that challenge individuals and teams to manipulate a ball," sometimes without using their hands, he said.

The roots of modern soccer can be traced to the British Isles, where "folk football" games had been played since medieval times in towns and villages, each with their own sets of rules and customs.

Some of these games were particularly violent and destructive and often involved rampaging mobs. Folk football was a largely chaotic affair and had few rules.

These games, sometimes dubbed "mob football," had large opposing teams, either from different villages or within the same settlement. They engaged in kicking, throwing, dragging or carrying a wooden or leather ball, or an inflated animal bladder, through streets and fields toward a specific target. Anyone could get involved—women and children, rich and poor—and there was no limit on the number of players.

A variety of statutes restricting or prohibiting the playing of football games can be found in towns throughout England and Ireland dating back as early as 1450. This was a response by authorities to the violence of some of these games.

"Village games of football were played as annual traditions around holidays and harvest times, and it was those folk traditions that evolved along several paths in earnest throughout the 19th century," Bigalke said.

In the 19th century, public (or independent) schools in Britain played a major role in the evolution of soccer. In this century, attempts to standardize and codify the game were made.

Independent schools like Eton and Rugby all boasted their own versions of soccer, with unique rules, some of which allowed limited handling of the ball while others did not.

"At the same time, the game developed separate traditions among workers in places like Sheffield and throughout Scotland," Bigalke said. "While developing alongside one another, it was mainly the public schools that won out when it came time to codify a universal set of rules."

History of the word soccer

In 1863, the Football Association was formed in London to govern the game and create a unified set of laws. By 1870, the FA had banned all handling of the ball except by the goalkeeper.

Even before the FA's formation, soccer was already starting to expand beyond Britain to other parts of the world, including the Americas.

"Thanks to British economic clout as much as their imperial power, the game was already being played under association rules—the root of the word soccer—in places like São Paulo and Buenos Aires before the end of the 1860s," Bigalke said. "Even in the United States, historically considered to be averse to soccer, hotbeds of popularity developed before the end of the 1800s.

"In short, we can point to Britain as the clear source of the game we now know as soccer, as it is in Britain where rules were reconciled and universalized in the 1800s."

In the United States, association football is more commonly referred to as "soccer." But where did this word come from? Students at the University of Oxford, England, in the 1880s used different terms to refer to distinct versions of football. They called rugby football—now known simply as rugby—"ruggers" while referring to association football as "asoccer," which was further shortened to "soccer."

In Great Britain—and many other parts of the world—"soccer" came simply to be known as football. But in the United States, the term soccer was given preference over time as a result of the growing popularity of a sport that emerged in the late 19th century which mixed elements of both rugby and association football. This sport is called "gridiron football" but most Americans simply refer to it as "football."

As gridiron spread in the U.S., eclipsing both rugby and association football, players of the latter began referring to their sport by using the word "soccer."

Despite the success of gridiron football in the United States, soccer continued to grow in popularity around the world in the 20th century. In 1904, the sport's current governing body—FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association)—was formed by the soccer associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

In 1908, soccer was included in the Olympic Games in London, and in 1930 FIFA hosted the first World Cup championship.

This tournament, which is held every four years, is now the sport's most prestigious event and is watched by billions worldwide.