Futsal
Towards the end of last year I began to notice a number of news reports about Futsal … I didn’t know what it was and just skimmed over them. Recently, however, I saw one headline that intrigued me: the Futsal Association was changing its name to the Futsal Federation. Why?, I wondered, what on earth did the change of name signify?
I asked one of our staff what Futsal was and he didn’t understand my pronounciation of the word; Futsal – with a shot vowels, both sounding like ‘a’. He thought for a bit and then asked, “Do you mean “Foot-zaal?”. The vowels were longer than I was saying and that changed the whole tone of the word. It was then that the penny dropped … instantly … like many Russian words it was a portmanteau word made up from two others: Football and Zal. Football probably doesn’t need any explanation, (except to the Americans where the word refers to a totally different game and they refer to what the rest of the world calls Football as “Soccer”), but in Russian “zaal” means “room” or “hall” and Futsal is Indoor Football.
The word is actually a portmanteau word from the Spanish and Portuguese words for “indoor football”. This “latin” name is appropriate because Futsal started in South America in the 1920’s. Soccer fans began to meet in small venues such as basketball courts, (both indoor and outdoor), in order to play their favourite game, (that is, Football, of course). The game that evolved had certain advantages: it could be played almost anyway and didn’t require so many to make a game, (There are five players in a tam – and they play with a smaller ball than Association Football).
In the 1930, a set of rules were codified by Juan Carlos Seriani, (who is known as the father of Futsal), and a competition organized by the local YMCA in Montevideo, in Uruguay. That was the start of something big. The sport grew rapidly in South America with several international competitions. Then, in 1971 a new international governing body, FIFUSA, was established which organized a World Championship which was held for the first time in 1982 and was held every three years until FIFUSA was dissolved in 2002 and reorganized into the AMF, (Asociacion Mundial de Futsal).
The game crossed the Atlantic, brought to Europe by the Austrians in 1958, where it also became quite popular. Soviet teams started to play the game in the early 1970s, where it was called “mini-football”; a name which is still used sometimes. For most of the 1970’s an All Union championship was held during the long hard winters, and even some foreign teams took part, (for example, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland).
Football’s world governing body, FIFA, saw the rapid development and rise in popularity of the game and decided to take the “mini” version of the sport under their wing. Apparently, FIFAUSA jealously guarded its independence and so FIFA established its own committee to regulate the game, establishing it’s own World Cup competition in 1989 in Rotterdam. That was won by Brazil, as they have on three other occasions – only giving up the title to Spain in 2000 and 2004. South American dominance of the game, however, did not go unchallenged; the runners-up in that first competition were the home team, the Netherlands, with the United States taking third place and Belgium, fourth.
Currently Spain tops the FIFA world rankings for Futsal, with Kyrgyzstan coming in a credit 37th place.
The sport is quite popular here. There are two major leagues, The Premier League, (or Higher League), which is the elite with the country’s top twelve teams, and the First League which has 16 teams split into two groups. Games are usually played in groups, with teams arriving to Bishkek to play matches over a two weekend in the DSK, (Detskiy Sportivniy Komplex – Children’s Sports Complex), in the seventh Microdistrict on the Southern outskirts of the city. There were some First League matches yesterday and next weekend will see the 8th and 9th rounds of the Premier League championship.
There are also other competitions – for example, a number of banks have teams which compete against each other for a cup and a separate league in Bishkek. IBC, (the International Business Council) is planning a competition between its members later in the year and even KATO, (the Kyrgyz Association of Tour Operators), fielded a team in a competition last year.
There are two different sets of rules for Futsal under the auspices of different ruling bodies, AMF and FIFA Futsal. Here, in Kyrgyzstan, the games are played according to the rules of FIFA Futsal.
Oh, and that name change … it seems that it was merely a formality to bring the Association into line with current international trends in the development of Futsal and the common terminology used in the charter and other regulatory documents of FIFA Futsal.
Bishkek