Lightning football is a term used to describe a shortened variation of Australian rules football, often played at half of the duration of a full match.

Lightning football is typically used as a means to accommodate a small tournament inside a single day or weekend, particularly at junior or amateur level; these tournaments are generally known as lightning premierships or lightning carnivals. At the top level of Australian rules football, lightning matches are currently staged as part of the Australian Football League pre-season competition.

The use of the word lightning, as a synonym for "fast", to describe an Australian rules football tournament appears to have originated with the first lightning carnival staged by the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in 1940. The term may have been adopted from its use in chess, which had used the word lightning in the same context for many years: "lightning chess" tournaments were seen in Australia from as early as 1909, and were played under modified rules in which players were allowed at most ten seconds to make each move, allowing an entire tournament to be completed in just a few hours.

Lightning is an atmospheric electrical discharge (spark) accompanied by thunder, usually associated and produced by cumulonimbus clouds, but also occurring during volcanic eruptions or in dust storms. From this discharge of atmospheric electricity, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 220,000 km/h (140,000 mph), and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 °C (54,000 °F), hot enough to fuse silica sand into glass channels known as fulgurites, which are normally hollow and can extend as much as several meters into the ground.

There are some 16 million lightning storms in the world every year. Lightning causes ionisation in the air through which it travels, leading to the formation of nitric oxide and ultimately, nitric acid, of benefit to plant life below.

Lightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions, or can be caused by violent forest fires which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.

How lightning initially forms is still a matter of debate. Scientists have studied root causes ranging from atmospheric perturbations (wind, humidity, friction, and atmospheric pressure) to the impact of solar wind and accumulation of charged solar particles.Ice inside a cloud is thought to be a key element in lightning development, and may cause a forcible separation of positive and negative charges within the cloud, thus assisting in the formation of lightning.

Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer". Unqualified, the word football applies to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears, including association football, as well as American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby league, rugby union and other related games. These variations of football are known as football "codes".

Various forms of "football" can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread, including to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. In the twentieth century, the various codes of football have become amongst the most popular team sports in the world.

A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football that are played are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, Rugby league, and Rugby union.

It has been estimated that there are 250 million association football players in the world, and many play the other forms of football.

Football players generally begin as amateurs and the best players progress to become professional players. Normally they start at a youth team (any local team) and from there, based on skill and talent, scouts offer contracts. Once signed, they learn to play better football and some advance to the senior or professional teams.

Research shows that association football players that take less than 200ms after the referee blows their whistle for a penalty kick are significantly more likely to miss scoring than those that take over a second.

American football players are prone to head injuries. This may make them prone to Alzheimers.