A football can be two different shapes, depending on which sport you mean.

Quick Scoop

1. Association football (soccer) ball

When people say “football” in most of the world, they mean association football (soccer).

  • The ball is, in practice, a near-perfect sphere.
  • Classic “black and white” balls are built from 32 panels: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons, arranged as a truncated icosahedron that inflates into a sphere.
  • Official rules require it to be spherical, with a defined circumference and very small deviation from perfect roundness.

So: a soccer football is spherical, constructed from polygon panels that form a truncated icosahedron shell when flat, but a sphere when properly inflated.

2. American football / rugby-style ball

In North America, “football” usually refers to American football, and in some contexts to similar rugby-style balls.

  • That ball is not round; its technical shape is a prolate spheroid (an elongated, oval-like 3D shape).
  • It has pointed ends and a longer axis from tip to tip than around the middle, which helps it spiral and fly more stably when thrown.
  • Historically, this comes from the shape of early inflated pig bladders, which were naturally more oval than round.

So: an American football is a prolate spheroid, often casually described as “oval” or “egg-shaped with pointed ends.”

3. Putting it simply

If you’re asking:

  • “What shape is a football?” in a soccer context → Sphere (made from pentagon and hexagon panels).
  • “What shape is a football?” in an American-football context → Prolate spheroid (elongated oval, pointed at both ends).

A fun way to remember it:
Soccer ball = like a globe (round sphere).
American football = like a stretched-out, pointed rugby egg (prolate spheroid).

TL;DR:

  • Soccer “football”: spherical.
  • American “football”: prolate spheroid (long, oval, pointed at ends).

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.