Touch Football

First training, now competition.

• Touch football is also known as touch rugby and touch, and involves both boys and girls.
• Touch football is like rugby, with a field, two teams and a ball,  except you don’t tackle, you tap.
• Touch football is often played in schools since it teaches important sporting techniques and is safer than rugby.
• Touch football requires a small amount of equipment – markers and a football (soccer ball in America).
• Touch football began in Australia, in 1923, as a fun thing to do, and as a training game for rugby league.  It did not become an official sport until 1968.

Touch Football
Image courtesy of Photobucket

• Over 40 countries around the world play touch football in major competitions.
• Touch football is popular in the South Pacific, Europe and the United Kingdom.
• Typically touch football games take 45 minutes – two 20 minute halves and a 5 minute half time break.
• The Touch Football World Cup is held every four years.
• In 2012 in Australia, there were approximately 400,000 registered players, 500,000 school children, and numerous others that played touch football, making it one of the most popular sports in the country.

Bibliography:
Touch Football (rugby league) 30 December 2012, Wikipedia,  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_football_(rugby_league)>