The drag and lift of footballs have been measured mainly by wind tunnel tests, which have provided the basis for many studies on ball flight trajectories. However, the dynamics of the fluid flow around the ball, particularly in relation to the vortex structure’s influence on drag and lift, are not clearly understood. In recent years, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been developed as a tool for the visualization and analysis of flow dynamics and vortex structures. Further, advancements in computational resources and computational methods have made it possible to realize a highly accurate visualization and analysis of fluid dynamics. As a result, in this study, using the Lattice Boltzmann method, we have visualized the wake of spinning and non-spinning soccer balls and demonstrated the dynamics of their vortex structures. Consequently, the dominant vortex structure of the wakes from spinning and non-spinning footballs was determined to be a large-scale counter rotating vortex pair. Further, the variation in the large-scale counter rotating vortex pair for a spinning ball was estimated to be smaller and more stable than that of a non-spinning ball. Although the presence of an unstable, large-scale counter rotating vortex pair in the wake of a non-spinning ball has been observed in past wind tunnel tests, according to this study, the dominant vortex structure of a spinning ball can be considered to be a stable, large-scale counter rotating vortex pair.
