The game was eventually brought to the United States

Patents for similar table games date back as early as the 1890s in Spain, Europe. However, foosball's origins date to 1921, when Harold Searles Thornton from the United Kingdom patented the game as "Apparatus for playing a game of table football".[2][3]

Thornton invented a football game that people could play in their homes due to the popularity of association football in Europe.[citation needed] The game adopted the name foosball in the United States via German imports that called it "tischfußball" (lit. "table football").[4][5] Its design inspiration came from a box of matches.[3]

Belgian magazine Le Soir illustré claimed in 1979 that the French inventor Lucien Rosengart (1881–1976) came up with the game of table soccer in the 1930s when he was looking for things to keep his grandchildren entertained during the cold winter months. He called the game "baby foot" instead of foosball.[6][7]

The Galician inventor Alejandro Finisterre patented his invention of table football, futbolín, in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. His version of the game is the one used in modern-day table football.[8]

The game was eventually brought to the United States in the 1950s by Lawrence Patterson, reaching its peak of popularity there in the 1970s, when it could be found in bars and pool halls everywhere throughout the country.[3]

In 2002, the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) was established in France with the mission of promoting the game. The ITSF acts as an organising sports body, regulating international competitions and establishing the game with the International Olympic Committee and General Association of International Sport Federation