Origins
Just like many other sports that we are familiar with these days, Futsal’s origins can be traced back to universities, schools or some other educational institution. The first time when Futsal appeared was back in 1930 when a teacher from Montevideo in Uruguay, Juan Carlos Ceriani, created one versions of a game that we today know is futsal.
The reason behind his decision was to create some activity for his students that they will be able to do in the conditions that they had. Initially, the intention was for this game to be played on basketball courts and the first rules were published back in 1933. Ceriani, who actually wrote the first rules for this game, looked up to football in order to create those rules. However, football was not the only inspiration for the rules. He also took some elements from other sports such as basketball (the number of players and the duration of the game) or handball (the size of the field) and many others.
After short period of time futsal started to spread all across the South America and it got to the point when it was necessary to establish one governing body that will regulate the rules and the competitions. One such governing body was established in 1971 in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the name of that of that organization was Federacion Internacional de Futbol de Salon (FIFUSA). The initial member of the FIFUSA were Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Portugal, Bolivia, and Uruguay. The first World Championship in futsal was played in 1982 and it was hosted by Brazil and the hosting team of Brazil managed to win the title while Uruguay finished in third place.
In 1985, there came a call from FIFA management to unite these two organizations. However, the Congress of FIFUSA decided to reject the call for unification. From that moment the controversies started in regards to the name of the game. However, that was not the end of the controversies in regards to this game. In 1990, Brazilian futsal federation decided to break away from the FIFUSA and together with other countries including Paraguay, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia and several other countries decided to establish the Confederacion Panamericana de Futbol de Salon or PANAFUTSAL.
After that move, FIFA and PANAFUTSAL attempted to resolved the issues on several occasions. One such occasion happened in 2000 in Guatemala. Although these two governing organizations signed the Protocol on that occasion, the follow up actions is what failed. Despite the Protocol FIFA and PANAFUTSAL continued to promote their separate versions of the futsal. In the next couple of years, there seemed to be a stagnation in the development and the popularity of the futsal.
In their effort to increase the popularity of the futsal and to bring the game into the parts of the work that have not been introduced to futsal yet, another governing body was established and that was AMF (Asociacion Mundial de Futsal) the body that we are familiar with today. Today, there are 40 national federations that are members of this governing body. Besides those 40 national federations, there are also three continental organizations that are also part of this governing body.
Today, futsal is sport with the popularity that has been increasing on a daily basis. The World Championship that was played this year just contributed to the popularity that this sport is gaining among young people.