Vincent Murphy
International Mootball Authority  ·  Authorised Edition  ·  Version 4.1  ·  Ratified · Grand Council
World-building companion · O.Welles 19/8.4

The Laws of Mootball

The official governing document of the world's most consequential sport. A sport and a civic act simultaneously. Neither purpose may be sacrificed without invalidating the contest.

Download full PDF Read Law I
The gladiators died because the crowd was bored. Our players win or lose because the crowd is paying attention. I'll take that trade.
— President O. Welles, at the First IMA Ratification Ceremony
Law I The Authorised Edition

The Nature of the Game

· · ·

Mootball proceeds from a single founding premise: that the ability to think and the ability to act are not in opposition, and that a society which treats them as such will eventually find it can do neither well.

1.1Definition

Mootball is a team contest of simultaneous physical and intellectual competition, played between two sides of twelve players each, over a fixed duration and in accordance with these Laws. Its purpose is twofold and inseparable: it is a sport, and it is a civic act. Neither purpose may be sacrificed in favour of the other without invalidating the contest.

1.2The Dual Mandate

A Mootball match is always played around something. That something is the Proposition: a question of genuine consequence, placed before the players and the world simultaneously. The match does not merely produce a winner. It produces a result — a physical and intellectual verdict on the Proposition, rendered by the players and weighted by the Crowd Argument Mass. Both the sporting result and the civic result are binding outcomes of every match.

1.3The Primacy of Simultaneity

In Mootball, the physical and the intellectual are not sequential. A player does not first compete physically and then argue, nor argue and then compete. Both occur at once, in the same body, in the same moment. This simultaneity is not incidental to the game; it is the game.

1.4The Spirit of the Game

Players are expected to embody the founding premise at all times. Victory achieved by physical dominance without intellectual coherence is not victory. Victory achieved by intellectual dominance without physical contest is not victory. The game demands both, always, from every player, for the full duration.

1.5Jurisdiction

These Laws govern all forms of Mootball recognised by the International Mootball Authority, from grassroots and community-level play through to the Grand Moot. Where a specific format requires modification to these Laws, such modifications are set out in the relevant Format Appendix and take precedence only in those specific circumstances. In all other respects, these Laws are supreme.

1.6On Losing

It is noted, and the IMA considers it worth stating plainly, that in Mootball it is entirely possible to lose the sporting contest while winning the argument, and to win the sporting contest while losing the argument.

The IMA does not adjudicate on which of these outcomes is preferable. History will.

Founding Note — President O. Welles
"The gladiators died because the crowd was bored. Our players win or lose because the crowd is paying attention. I'll take that trade."
The Other Eleven

Laws II through XII

The full Authorised Edition runs to twelve Laws and their Annexes. They constitute a complete and indivisible document. The Laws are the game. The game is the Laws.

Law II

The Proposition

The question of genuine civic consequence around which every match is contested. A Proposition that admits only one defensible answer is not a Proposition. It is propaganda.

Law II · Addendum

The Meta-Moot

A Grand Moot result may only be revisited through a further Grand Moot. The process is the test. The test is the point.

Law III

The Field of Play

Five zones: Threshold (Conclusion), Advance (Dialectic), and the Centrist Ground (Common Ground). No goalposts. An argument, when it truly crosses the line, requires no frame to confirm it.

Law IV

The Mootball

A regular dodecahedron with two internal dronelets — the Inscriber and the Eraser. Not a ball. A physical argument: a three-dimensional, continuously updated representation of the contest's intellectual state.

Law V

The Players

Twelve players per side: eleven on the field, one Orchestrator. The exo-suit equalises but does not replace. The requirement is wholeness: physically present, intellectually engaged, at all times.

Law VI

The Positions

Keepers, Defenders, Wingers, Dialogists, Presticogetators — each with a physical role and an intellectual role of equal weight. A player who performs only one is playing half a game.

Law VII

The Orchestrator

The twelfth player. Cannot enter the field. Broadcasts publicly to players, crowd, and world simultaneously. There are no private channels in Mootball at Grand Bang level.

Law VIII

Duration and Structure

Three Acts — Development, Dialectic, Resolution. The clock stops when the argument demands it. The world's most important arguments have never concluded on schedule.

Law IX

Scoring

Three simultaneous conditions: physical crossing, argument dominance, legitimate possession. Winning an argument requires more than being right, more than being strong, and more than having the world's attention. It requires all three at once.

Law X

The Crowd Argument Mass

The pollice verso made civilisational. The crowd does not decide whether the gladiator lives. It decides whether the argument does. The CAM is not the game's ruler. It is its conscience.

Law XI

Fouls, Sanctions & the Spirit of the Game

Two registers: physical and intellectual. A physical foul can be accidental. An intellectual foul cannot. Ninety-seven entries in the Register, and counting.

Law XII

The Grand Moot

The supreme form. Convened only by the Auntie-In-Chief. The match that matters most — because its Proposition is not a question the Interdependent Stake is curious about. It is a question it must answer.

Read the full document

The Laws are the game. The game is the Laws.

Thirty-one pages. Twelve Laws, two Addenda, one Annex. A working society does not eliminate contest. It civilises it.

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