Football ( ball ) A football is an inflated ball used to play one of the various sports known as football . The first balls were made of natural materials , such as an inflated pig bladder , sometimes inside a leather cover , which has given rise to the United States slang - term " pigskin . " Modern balls are designed by teams of engineers to exacting specifications , with rubber or plastic bladders , and often with plastic covers . Various leagues and games use different balls , though they all have one of the following basic shapes : The precise shape and construction of footballs is typically specified as part of the . The oldest football still in existence , which is thought to have been made circa 1540 , was discovered in the roof of Stirling Castle , Scotland , in 1981 . The ball is made of leather ( possibly from a deer ) and a pig ' s bladder . It has a diameter of between , weighs and is currently on display at the Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling . American and Canadian football . In North America , the term football usually refers to a ball made of leather , which is required in professional and collegiate football . Footballs used in recreation , and in organised youth leagues , may be made of rubber or plastic materials ( the high school football rulebooks still allow the inexpensive all - rubber footballs , though they are less common than leather ) . Leather panels are usually tanned to a natural brown color , which is usually required in professional leagues and collegiate play . At least one manufacturer uses leather that has been tanned to provide a " tacky " grip in dry or wet conditions . Historically , white footballs have been used in games played at night so that the ball can be seen more easily ; however , this practice is no longer commonplace , as artificial lighting conditions have improved to the point where it is no longer necessary . Two indoor American football leagues , the Ultimate Indoor Football League and American Indoor Football , use a ball with red , white and blue panels . At most levels of play ( but not , notably , the NFL ) , white stripes are painted on each end of the ball , halfway around the circumference , to improve nighttime visibility . The UFL uses a ball with lime - green stripes . In the CFL the stripes traverse the entire circumference of the ball . The XFL used a novel color pattern , a black ball with red curved lines in lieu of stripes , for its footballs ; this design was redone in a tan and navy color scheme for the Arena Football League in 2003 . The leather is usually stamped with a pebble - grain texture to help players grip the ball . Some or all of the panels may be stamped with the manufacturer ' s name , league or conference logos , signatures , and other markings . Four panels or pieces of leather or plastic are required for each football . After a series of quality control inspections for weight and blemishes , workers begin the actual manufacturing process . Two of the panels are perforated along adjoining edges , so that they can be laced together . One of these lacing panels receives an additional perforation and reinforcements in its center , to hold the inflation valve . Each panel is attached to an interior lining . The four panels are then stitched together in an " inside - out " manner . The edges with the lacing holes , however , are not stitched together . The ball is then turned right side out by pushing the panels through the lacing hole . A polyurethane or rubber lining called a " bladder " is then inserted through the lacing hole . Polyvinyl chloride or leather laces are inserted through the perforations , to provide a grip for holding , hiking and passing the football . Before play , the ball is inflated to an air pressure of . The ball weighs . In an NFL game , the home club must have 36 balls for an outdoor game or 24 for an indoor game , and they must be available for the referee to test with a pressure gauge two hours before the game . Twelve new footballs , sealed in a special box and shipped by the manufacturer , are opened in the officials ’ locker room two hours before the game . These balls are specially marked with the letter " K " and used exclusively for the kicking game . Association football . Dimensions . Law 2 of the game specifies that the ball is an air - filled sphere with a circumference of , a weight of , inflated to a pressure of 0 . 6 to 1 . 1 atmospheres ( ) " at sea level " , and covered in leather or " other suitable material " . The weight specified for a ball is the dry weight , as older balls often became significantly heavier in the course of a match played in wet weather . The standard ball is a Size 5 , although smaller sizes exist : Size 3 is standard for team handball and Size 4 in futsal and other small - field variants . Other sizes are used in underage games or as novelty items . History . Spherical footballs were invented shortly before the rules of association football were formalised . In 1855 , Charles Goodyear designed and manufactured spherical footballs ; these were made entirely of vulcanised rubber . In 1863 , the English Football Association was formed and the rules of association football were established . However , there was no description on the ball size until 1873 when it was decided that the ball " must be spherical with a circumference of . " This rule still applies for the association football official matches played today all over the world . The early rules specified a weight of which was however changed in 1937 to the current accepted weight , . At the same time , the association agreed that the official association football ball must be covered in leather or any approved material . A direct consequence of establishing the laws of the game by the English Football Association was the mass production of association football balls . The first two companies that started producing association football balls in larger quantities were Mitre and Thomlinson from Glasgow . They produced balls made of leather because they wanted to produce good quality association football balls that will retain their form after use . On the other hand , they preferred stitching the panels since that means better quality and better and longer resistance in what the ball concerns . The best covers which resulted in very expensive association football balls were the ones made from the rump of a cow . By the 20th century , the official balls were produced with rubber bladders which were able to withstand heavier pressure . Until the 1950s the official balls used during association football matches had dark colors because of the color of the leather . In 1951 a white ball was first permitted to help spectators see the ball easier with the advent of floodlights . Even if they were used earlier in unofficial games , the official association football balls were permitted only in the mid - 20th century . Construction . Most modern footballs are stitched from 32 panels of waterproofed leather or plastic : 12 regular pentagon s and 20 regular hexagon s . The 32 - panel configuration is the spherical polyhedron corresponding to the truncated icosahedron ; it is spherical because the faces bulge from the pressure of the air inside . The first 32 - panel ball was marketed by Select in the 1950s in Denmark . This configuration became common throughout Continental Europe in the 1960s , and was publicised worldwide by the Adidas Telstar , the official ball of the 1970 World Cup . The familiar 32 - panel football design is sometimes referenced to describe the truncated icosahedron Archimedean solid , carbon buckyballs or the root structure of geodesic dome s . Balls are usually stitched from non - waterproof plastic , similar to the design of the modern volleyballs and Gaelic football s , and laced to allow access to the internal air bladder . The official FIFA World Cup football for Germany 2006 matches was the 14 - panel Adidas + Teamgeist . It was made in Pakistan and Thailand by Adidas , who have provided the official match balls for the tournament since 1970 , and is a " thermally bonded " machine - pressed ball , rather than a traditionally stitched one . Adidas will continue to supply the official football for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups . In 2010 , the official match ball Jabulani ' s design received criticism , with former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson describing it as a " beach ball " responsible for a rise in errors by goalkeepers and Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas also called it too rough for the goalkeepers . Another ball with an innovative pattern is the 26 - panel Mitre PRO 100T . There are also indoor footballs , which are made of one or two pieces of plastic . Often these have designs printed on them to resemble a stitched leather ball . Chip - enabled ball . The Chip - enabled football was invented by Adidas , the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated circuits in Erlangen and the company Cairos Technologies . The ball contains an integrated ASIC - Chip and a transmitter for the transfer of data . The chip is suspended in the middle of the football and sends a signal to a receiver at the referee ' s wrist once the ball passed the outer goal - line . The first tests were performed in Nuremberg . The stadium is equipped with twelve antennas in light masts and other locations distributed around the arena which collect data that is transmitted from the chip . The antennas are connected to a fiber optic cable which routes the data to servers in order to analyze them . The system was first used during the FIFA U - 17 World Cup in Peru . Child labor worries . Pakistan is the largest manufacturer of footballs on the planet . About 80 % of association footballs are made in Pakistan . 75 % of these ( 60 % of all world production ) are made in the city of Sialkot . Child labor was commonly used in the production of the balls before the 21st century . In 1996 , during the European championship , activists lobbied to end the use of child labor . This eventually led to the Atlanta Agreement , which seeks to reform the industry to eliminate the use of child labor in the production of balls . This also led to a centralisation of production , which on the one hand would make it easier for the Independent Monitoring Association for Child Labour ( IMAC ) — an organisation created to watch over the Atlanta Agreement — to make sure no child labor occurred , on the other hand often forced workers to commute further to get to work . The problem was largely due to highly skilled but uneducated class of labour force who would prefer to have their children learn the craft as opposed to going to school . Australian rules football . The football used in Australian football is similar to a rugby ball but generally slightly smaller and more rounded at the ends , but more elongated in overall appearance , being longer by comparison with its width than a rugby ball . A regulation football is in circumference , and transverse circumference , and inflated to a pressure of . In the AFL , the balls are red for day matches and yellow for night matches . Australian football ball brands include Burley , Ross Faulkner , and Sherrin ( the brand used mainly by the Australian Football League ) . The Australian football ball was invented by T . W . Sherrin in 1880 , after he was given a misshapen rugby ball to fix . Sherrin designed the ball with indented rather than pointy ends to give the ball a better bounce . Before this time , a round ball was used from the 1850s to 1870s and later rugby balls were used to play the game . Gaelic football . Gaelic football is played with a spherical leather ball , roughly in diameter and in circumference . A dry ball weighs between . The pattern of panels is identical to the volleyball , consisting of six groups perpendicular to each other , each group being composed of two trapezoid al panels and one rectangular panel ; 18 panels in all . Gaelic footballs are also the standard balls used in international rules football . Although Gaelic football has been played with a round ball since first organised in 1887 , balls made by the Irish sports company O ' Neills have been used sometime since the company was founded in 1918 and are recognised as the official ball to be played with , although it is now permitted to use the Gaelic ball manufactured by the Irish sports company Gaelic Gear . Rugby football . Richard Lindon and Bernardo Solano started making balls for Rugby school out of hand stitched , four - panel , leather casings and pigs ’ bladders . The rugby ball ' s distinctive shape is supposedly due to the pig ’ s bladder , although early balls were more plumb - shape than oval . The balls varied in size in the beginning depending upon how large the pig ’ s bladder was . Until 1870 , rugby was played with a near spherical ball with an inner - tube made of a pig ' s bladder . In 1870 Richard Lindon introduced rubber inner - tubes and because of the pliability of rubber the shape gradually changed from a sphere to an egg . In 1892 the RFU endorsed ovalness as the compulsory shape . The gradual flattening of the ball continued over the years . The introduction of synthetic footballs over the traditional leather balls , in both rugby codes , was originally governed by weather conditions . If the playing surface was wet , the synthetic ball was used , as it didn ' t absorb water and become heavy . Eventually , the leather balls were phased out completely . Rugby league . Rugby league is played with a prolate spheroid shaped football which is inflated with air . A referee will stop play immediately if the ball does not meet the requirements of size and shape . Traditionally made of brown leather , modern footballs are synthetic and manufactured in a variety of colours and patterns . Senior competitions should use light coloured balls to allow spectators to see the ball more easily . The football used in rugby league is known as " international size " or " size 5 " and is approximately long and in circumference at its widest point . Smaller - sized balls are used for junior versions of the game , such as " Mini " and " Mod " . A full size ball weighs between . Rugby league footballs are slightly more pointed than rugby union footballs and larger than American footballs . The Australasian National Rugby League and European Super League use balls made by Steeden . Steeden is also sometimes used as a noun to describe the ball itself . Rugby union . The ball used in rugby union , usually referred to as a rugby ball , is a prolate spheroid essentially elliptical in profile . Traditionally made of brown leather , modern footballs are manufactured in a variety of colors and patterns . A regulation football is long and in circumference at its widest point . It weighs and is inflated to . In 1980 , leather - encased balls , which were prone to water - logging , were replaced with balls encased in synthetic waterproof materials . The Gilbert Synergie was the match ball of the 2007 Rugby World Cup .