Blatterball

How To Play Blatterball

Blatterball is essentially a cross between soccer and dodgeball [1]. It's named in honour of the former head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, who we believe best captures the essence of "dodgy" and "soccer" in a single word [2].

Setup:
1. Obtain a large, roughly rectangular space. Indoors or outdoors should work.
2. Place goals at either end.
3. Divide your group into even-ish teams.

Rules:
1. The aim of the game is to score goals (as in normal soccer).
2. If the ball touches a player on or below the knees, they are out. Yes, that means you can't kick the ball [3].
3. You must hit the ball with your hands, but you can't pick it up. Open or closed palms only. Basketball dribbling is cool, if somewhat ineffective. Use your discretion.
4. If any part of your body except your feet or hands touches the ground, you're out. That means no kneeling, or somersaulting, or whatever. Handstands are fine. [4]
5. If the ball is caught on the full off a player, they are out. This helps reduce aerial shots, and broken lights [5].
6. Friendly-fire is on; in other words, it doesn't matter if someone on your team gets you out, you're still out.
7. When a goal is scored, the game resets; all the players who were out are back in the game, and it continues.

Obviously, the person with the most goals at the end wins. For extra fun times, add an element of bribery and corruption. Also, make sure to randomly award goals to Qatar for a real, genuine FIFA World Cup experience.

Footnotes:
[1] To be specific, the game "Gaga Ball"; it's featured elsewhere on this site.
[2] Please don't sue me. I have no monies.
[3] For the pedants: Of course, yes, you can kick the ball, it's just not a very good career move, and your team will probably disown you after the fifteenth time.
[4] Amusingly, this means taking dives will result in getting out. Also, biting is out. Apologies to Luis Suarez.
[5] This is not a hypothetical. Although, it did provide an opportune moment for a drinks break whilst a vacuum cleaner was obtained.

Added by
Rohan
on 8 June 2015