About Wales

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) was established on 2 February 1876 at the Wynnstay Arms Hotel in Wrexham — initially to arrange a forthcoming match against Scotland — with a constitutional meeting held in May 1876 to formalise the name and governing rules. The FAW is the third-oldest national football association in the world, after England and Scotland. It is one of four founding associations of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which oversees the Laws of the Game, and became a UEFA member in 1954. The Welsh Cup, introduced in 1877, is one of the oldest cup competitions in the world.

Wales had a long wait between major tournament appearances — qualifying for the 1958 FIFA World Cup (reaching the quarter-finals with John Charles) and then not qualifying again for a major tournament until UEFA Euro 2016, ending a 58-year absence. At Euro 2016, Wales reached the semi-finals, their best result in a major tournament, led by Gareth Bale, who became one of the finest players of his generation during his time at Real Madrid. The team qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup — their first since 1958 — further cementing a new era of Welsh football.

The FAW relocated its headquarters from Wrexham to Cardiff in 1985 and established the League of Wales (now Cymru Premier) in 1992 to strengthen the domestic game's independence from the English football pyramid. In 2022, the national team adopted the "Cymru" branding — the Welsh-language name for Wales — in international competition.