The central topic of this essay is the analysis of football (soccer) rules in the light of social theories which, implicitly or explicitly, subsidize several approaches of the phenomenon of sports. By handling the summary of the rule book and setting three conceptual shifts of structuralist, funcional-structuralist and configurational inspiration, respectively, the reasoning developed here aims to relocate the infra-structural nucleus of football (soccer) conceived from the perspective of the whole set of its rules and which is at the basis of an understanding of football (soccer) as a modern sport, in a larger comparative movement which is fundamental to the consolidation of a proposal of an anthropology of sports.
anthropology of sports; magic football; football; rules
