What does FIFA stand for?

The full name behind the four letters of FIFA is Fédération Internationale de Football Association. It is French for "International Federation of Association Football." The body's job is to govern football worldwide: it runs the World Cup, sets the rules of the international game alongside the IFAB, and recognises the national football associations that organise the sport in each country. Today FIFA is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and its decisions affect every level of the professional game.

FIFA was founded in 1904, in Paris. The seven founding national associations were all European, and French was at the time the most common shared language of international diplomacy and organisation. It made sense for a new pan-European football body to adopt a French name, and that name stuck even as FIFA grew far beyond Europe in the decades that followed. The English-language version of the name — "International Federation of Association Football" — is a translation, not the original. The acronym FIFA itself comes straight from the French word order.

In the modern era FIFA is best known for organising the World Cup, but its role is wider. It oversees and supports more than two hundred national football associations around the world. It manages the official world rankings, runs other tournaments such as the Women's World Cup and various youth and club competitions, and works with FIFPRO and confederations on the laws and economics of the international game. The four letters that look like such a short name carry, in the end, a fairly long job description.

This article was written using information from Wikipedia.