Aydın Tiryaki and Gemini AI (2026)

In today’s football, we are accustomed to seeing players with numbers like 99, 77, or 22. However, in the historical evolution of the sport, shirt numbers were not a matter of “preference” but a mandatory “command.” In this rigid system, which new generations might find difficult to imagine, the number did not belong to the player, but to the position occupied on the pitch that day.

The Mandatory 1-11: No Exceptions

In the past, according to the Laws of the Game, the starting eleven players were required to wear shirts numbered sequentially from 1 to 11. This was not merely a tradition; it was a technical requirement enforced by federations.

• No Room for Flexibility: A player could not say, “My lucky number is 17, let me wear that.” If he was playing as a right-winger that day, he had to wear number 7; if he was the center-forward, he wore number 9.
• The Fate of the Substitutes: The rules were equally strict for those on the bench. Substitutes started from number 12 and followed in sequence (up to 16 or 18, depending on the rules of the era).
• The Owner of Number 12: In this system, number 12 belonged unquestionably and strictly to the substitute goalkeeper. It was impossible to see an outfield player’s name next to number 12 on a team sheet.

The Great Turning Point: 1994 World Cup (USA)

The organization that broke this status quo in world football was the 1994 World Cup. FIFA introduced two major innovations during the tournament held in the United States to both assist referees and ensure individual player recognition:

1. Fixed Numbers: The 22 players in the squad were assigned a number at the start of the tournament, which they wore in every match (even if they were on the bench).
2. Player Names: For the first time in World Cup history, player names were printed on the back of the shirts.

Transition in Domestic Leagues

The success of this system at the World Cup led domestic leagues to quickly follow suit:

• England (1993): The Premier League was actually a commercial pioneer, adopting fixed numbers and names in the 1993-94 season, a year before the World Cup.
• Italy and Spain (1995): Serie A and La Liga, the heartbeats of European football, switched to the fixed squad number system for the 1995-96 season.
• Turkey (1997): Turkish football joined this modernization wave starting from the 1997-98 season. The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) allowed numbers from 1 to 99 and made it mandatory to print names on the back of the shirts.

A System That Needed No Commentator

Those who lived through that era will remember: when following matches on TV or radio, the shirt number meant everything. If you saw a number 10 on a player’s back, you didn’t need a commentator to tell you he was the playmaker. With the transition to fixed numbers, the number ceased to be a “positional definition” and evolved into a personal brand (for example, number 7 representing a specific star rather than just a winger).

This article summarizes not just a change in numbering, but how football evolved from a “regulated” game into a global “industry.”

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A Note on Methods and Tools: All observations, ideas, and solution proposals in this study are the author’s own. AI was utilized as an information source for researching and compiling relevant topics strictly based on the author’s inquiries, requests, and directions; additionally, it provided writing assistance during the drafting process. (The research-based compilation and English writing process of this text were supported by AI as a specialized assistant.)