Football
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".
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
