A football association and organised league maybe but not the actual form of football. That was the Chinese in the 3rd century then another form of football called tlatchi followed by the Aztecs in the 9th century?
How about an extract from a forthcoming book to clear things up? Oh, and if you'd like to buy the book, how about a link to it?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-Wanted-About-Football-Afraid/dp/1408114968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250697534&sr=1-2
"The first records of a football-like game come from an old Chinese military manual thought to date back to the third century BC. Tsu Chu, a catchy little name that roughly translates to 'kickball', was a ludicrously difficult game that, nevertheless, was extremely popular in the Tsin and Han dynasties. The object of the game was to kick a ball stuffed with fur or feathers into a net approximately 30 or 40 centimetres in diameter. The only catch was that the net was suspended on 30ft tall bamboo canes. Apparently, this game was often played as part of the Emperor's birthday celebrations, so the next time you think you're stressed, imagine trying to impress a quick-tempered despot by punting a football through a basketball hoop hanging off the top of your house. You wouldn't want to get that wrong too many times.
Over in Japan, somewhere between 300AD and 600AD, they played Kemari, a simple but addictive game played with a ball made from deerskin and sawdust. The object here was for a small team of players, eight or less, to keep the ball airborne for as long as they could, essentially like a group version of keepy-ups. You can still see this game being played today by eager-to-impress young men on Spanish beaches, usually within the viewpoint of a group of sunbathing girls. Kemari remained popular in Japan for well over a thousand years and pops up regularly in poems and folklore. One legend tells of an emperor who led his team to a mind-boggling 1,000 keepy-ups before retiring the ball and promoting it to a high ranking position within his court. That's the equivalent of Queen Elizabeth II insisting that her tennis racket is appointed Foreign Secretary.
These, however, are all mere variants of the game we know and love today. For the first example of a competitive team game with a clear objective, we must look to 9th century England where the first reference of a group of boys 'playing ball' is made. Though this is the first recorded mention of the game, it is highly unlikely to be the first time it was actually played. The most appealing explanation for English football's origin is the theory that the game was played hundreds of years prior to that.
Apparently it was victorious Anglo-Saxon warriors who started it all by enjoying what can only have been a short-lived and particularly messy kickabout with the severed head of a Danish prince. There are other more boring theories about its origins lying in primitive village festivals with the ball representing the sun and the players attempting to gain supremacy over it to ensure a good harvest, but they're no fun so we'll ignore them entirely.
Medieval football, with actual balls rather than heads, was a violent and chaotic affair. There were no limits on numbers, so the game would be contested by vast mobs across huge swathes of land. Like any game whose only two rules are, "No murder and no manslaughter," it was low on technical skill and high on blood and gore, a lot like today's Scottish Premier League. If the game was ever played in a town, the players would rip through the streets like a sweaty whirlwind, causing untold damage to property. Unsurprisingly, the authorities began to take rather a dim view of this new pastime. "
