Abstract
The question posed at the study group, by a South African premiership team based in Johannesburg, was basically, ‘Can we choose a match ball that will disadvantage opponents?’ In this report we answer the question through focussing on the motion of a football through the air (which is where the difference in the ball’s behaviour due to altitude is greatest). The forces affecting a ball’s motion are described and we show how this translates into a mathematical problem consisting of a system of coupled nonlinear differential equations. Numerical and approximate analytical solutions are presented and compared. We then show how the mathematical results may be used to guide the choice of ball.
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