Football
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Know your facts:
- Football has been a sport at Special Olympics World Games since 1987
- Unified Sports? Yes
- Estimated number of athletes participating: 475 athletes+ 129 Unified partners
The goal of the Special Olympics football competitions is the same as football competitions all over the world: to get the ball into the net!
Special Olympics feature:
In our competitions seven players play against seven players with some special rules:
- The goalkeeper throws the ball into play.
- The goal has a size of 5x2 meters.
- A team has a maximum of 12 players, substitutions are unlimited.
- There is no offside rule.
- After the ball has been out of bounds, it must be kicked back into play, and no direct goal can be scored.
- There are two halves of 20 minutes each, with a five minute halftime break.
- If there is a tie at the end of the game, there will be two five-minute overtime periods. If no team is victorious after that, it goes directly to a penalty shootout.
We have four competitions:
- Team Competition - Women
- Team Competition - Men
- Unified Sports Team Competition - Women
- Unified Sports Team Competition - Men
By the way:
Football was played in China as early as the 3rd century B.C. At that time, the game was called Cuju, which means "kicking ball".
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