The evolution of the FIFA World Cup official match ball (1930 to present): A review

Résumé fourni par la source

In this review, we track the technological, material and marketing evolution of the official FIFA World Cup match ball, from the tournament’s inception in 1930 to the present. We mobilise scientific papers, official documents and the international press to show that the ball’s history cannot be understood solely as a story of technical progress, but that it must also be situated within the broader political economy of global football, including television, sponsorship and merchandising. Three broad periods are identified: (i) the pre-Adidas era (1930-1966), characterised by hand-stitched leather balls with design limitations such as water absorption; (ii) the Adidas-era part 1 (1970-2002), which introduced the iconic 32-panel Telstar for television and the first fully synthetic ball ( Azteca , 1986); and (iii) the Adidas-era part 2 (2006-present), with a focus on aerodynamics through thermal bonding and fewer panels. Since the 2022 World Cup, the official tournament ball has integrated “Connected Ball Technology” to support refereeing. Overall, the official World Cup ball has evolved from a rudimentary leather object to a highly engineered and commercially powerful artefact, whose transformation into a branded collectable and increasingly mediatised object reflects the wider hyper-commodification of contemporary global football.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.