East Dunbartonshire Football Development held it’s first ever Futsal festival on Monday 23 June at Kirkintilloch High School.
Teams from Westerton Utd, Lenzie Academy and Rosebank Utd played round robin games after a short introduction on the Laws of the Game to both players and coaches a like.
Futsal is the FIFA standard for the indoor five-a-side game and has been widely promoted across the globe in the last few years. There are now more players playing the indoor form of the game globally than the full-sided version, and the game attracts a massive following in Asia and South America. The most famous exponent of the game is former Brazilian striker Ronaldo, who has publicly attributed his prodigious talents in front of goal to the skills gained whilst playing Futsal in Brazil.
The initiative follows extensive research conducted by the Scottish FA highlighting a significant drop-out rate of players in this age group at secondary school due to the increase in pressures of exams, part time work, social calendar and boredom in traditional football.
Futsal, one of the fastest growing games in the world, is designed to embrace the fast-paced, skill based indoor alternative to the traditional game to reengage the young players to reduce the fall out in this age group.
Scott Murray (East Dunbartonshire Assistant Football Development Officer) commented:
“You could see the players were a little apprehensive in the first few matches as they got to grips with the pace of game, however as the games went on the standard increased dramatically as they adjusted from the normal rules of the game and became more comfortable with what they were doing. Overall the night was a great success and the coaches were keen to see more happening in the future”.
East Dunbartonshire are keen to make the fixtures a regular occurrence throughout the year and will be consulting with local clubs on how to take this forward.
The Scottish FA are now promoting the concept on a national level, investing in several key areas of the game from the different goals needed to play the game, and more recently launching it’s very own coach education course starting this summer.
You can found out more about futsal in Scotland by clicking here.