page_title: Gridiron football
hierarchical_section_title: Gridiron football
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Schéma d'un terrain de football canadien. Image PNG créée avec le logiciel Inkscape v0.43 sous Windows XP. Le type de licence est modifié par rapport à la première version. English: Outline of a canadian football field. PNG image created with Inkscape v0.43 under Windows XP. The type of license has been modified since first version.
context_page_description: Gridiron football, also known as North American football or, in North America, simply football, is a family of football sports primarily played in the United States and Canada. American football, which uses 11-player teams, is the form played in the United States and the best known form of gridiron football worldwide, while Canadian football, featuring 12-player teams, predominates in Canada. Other derivative varieties include indoor football and Arena football, football for smaller teams, and informal games such as touch and flag football. Football is played at professional, collegiate, high school, semi-professional, and amateur levels.
  These sports originated in the 19th century out of older games related to modern rugby football, more specifically rugby union football. American and Canadian football developed alongside each other and were originally more distinct before Canadian teams adopted features of the American game.
context_section_description: Gridiron football, also known as North American football or, in North America, simply football, is a family of football sports primarily played in the United States and Canada. American football, which uses 11-player teams, is the form played in the United States and the best known form of gridiron football worldwide, while Canadian football, featuring 12-player teams, predominates in Canada. Other derivative varieties include indoor football and Arena football, football for smaller teams (most commonly eight players), and informal games such as touch and flag football. Football is played at professional, collegiate, high school, semi-professional, and amateur levels.
  These sports originated in the 19th century out of older games related to modern rugby football, more specifically rugby union football. American and Canadian football developed alongside (but independently from) each other and were originally more distinct before Canadian teams adopted features of the American game. Both varieties are distinguished from other football sports by their use of hard plastic helmets and shoulder pads, the forward pass, the system of downs, a number of unique rules and positions, measurement in customary units of yards (even in Canada, which mostly metricated in the 1970s, yards are still used), and a distinctive brown leather ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid with pointed ends.
  The international governing body for the sport is the International Federation of American Football (IFAF); although the organization plays all of its international competitions under American rules, it uses a definition of the game that is broad enough that it includes Canadian football under its umbrella, and Football Canada (the governing body for Canadian football) is an IFAF member.
caption: Diagram of a Canadian football field, wider and longer than the American field
exif: {}