Laws of the Game Archives (1886-2004)

[campbed]

I just referenced this site on another thread, so without further ado, this url contains the meeting minutes of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) who are the custodians of the laws of the game since there has BEEN a game.

http://ssbra.org/html/laws/ifab.html

So, you all you law wonks out there, if you want to know why a law is the way it is and how it got there, this is your site. Look for a given year (starting with 1886! wow!) and read the minutes. They include the agreed law changes in the minutes, complete with pictures of short shorts and long hair from the 1970's! Cool! If anyone can actually read the script from the 1800's minutes, you are better than me.

Apologies for anyone who has posted this info in the past.

p.s. I take absolutely NO responsibility for how people on this board use or misuse this information in their posts. You know what I mean! :p

p.s.s. Why doesn't the IFAB have their own web site hosting their archives?

[ref2coach]

My question is why has it not been updated for the last 4 years?

[DerbyRam54]

It is a really fascinating site, and not just for development of the laws of the game.
For instance, there is an amusing episode in the very early days where the FA managed to lose the minutes book. It took a couple of meetings before they 'fessed up to it and a new book had to be purchased.
Then there was the curious episode where FIFA was thrown off the board, only to be reinstated a couple of years later. The minutes don't actually have an action to chuck them off, they just restated the membership of IFAB as being the four home associations. You have to dig around to discover that FIFA was wanting a cut of gate receipts for international matches and the home FAs were having none of that. When FIFA backed off, they were readmitted.
If you read the minutes in the first three decades, almost every one has some decision that we take for granted these days but was not so clear back then.
Watching a match from the early days would be fascinating if we could travel back in time. It was a bit odd watching a 1991 cup match between Everton and Liverpool last night, observing the goalkeeper handling balls passed back to him. A match from those bygone days would probably seem quite strange.
The one thing that is needed to round out the picture is a set of LOTG from various early periods.

[campbed]

My question is why has it not been updated for the last 4 years?

Jim Allen mention this at a training session, but I forget the reason. Perhaps someone else has a better memory.

[PVancouver]

It would be more wonderful if all those minutes were converted to character-based text.

[Gary V]

It would be more wonderful if all those minutes were converted to character-based text.
Feel free.

[DerbyRam54]

It would be more wonderful if all those minutes were converted to character-based text.

No it wouldn't. You flush all the history down the pan when you do that.

Those minutes represent the efforts of people who, at least initially, were feeling their way forward, trying to codify laws that had taken a long time to coalesce, to reach a stage where everybody could agree on how the game should be played.

If you set it in 12 point Times Roman, I grant you it is more easily read. But you ought to appreciate the long-hand and the typewritten pages for what they represent and try to absorb the spirit and traditions of the game.