Futsal or Outdoor Football: FFA Which do you prefer?

With the National Futsal Championships about to start in Canberra next week thoughts in the Capital are turning to Indoor Football, or Futsal as it's known.

I'm biased. I love the outdoor stuff, but in my later years spent years playing futsal, and came to love it as I got older and slower.

And if you ask the kids, many, many, prefer indoor over the outdoor game.

Which do Football Federation Australia prefer?

The answer seems clear, and Futsal players will not be happy.


Clearly the Indoor version is second fiddle or even lower down the FFA ranks.

Before Futsal joined under the Football FFA umbrella, the Futsal organisation organised and ran camps and overseas trips for representative sides of all ages.

Today despite their increasing numbers their are far fewer official tournaments, overseas trips and training camps.

The Futsalroos are the men's national side. This year, they will play in the KL 5's in March, then the Asia Cup in Thailand in May.

They need to come in the top four of the Asia Cup to go to the World Cup in Brazil next year.

Camps to prepare? Nil.

Women's National Futsal side? Doesn't exist. Not anymore.

The FFA clearly have put their limited but now growing resources into the Socceroos firstly and now the Matildas.

And you may imagine how people within Futsal, who see this as their number one sport, must feel, when having been taken over by the FFA see their game bursting at the seams in terms of registrations, but getting a smaller and smaller piece of the financial pie, and perhaps more importantly, a smaller and smaller piece of the planning pie.

For five years the games were on SBS. Now there is nothing.

What is the future of Futsal?

And the FFA have gone Dutch thanks to Guus. We now have Rob Baan and Pim Verbeek, and the Dutch don't really value Futsal, certainly not like the Brazilians.

Come to think of it when did the last Ronaldhino come out of Holland?

Does this mean Futsal has little place in the FFA development pathway?

Futsal, so long the darling of SBS, popular in South America and belong, seems to be heading nowhere in Australia despite its popularity.

As outdoor football becomes a 10 month a year game what place is their for a National Futsal League, men and women's in the FFA'S plan?

What place for training camps, representative sides?

Quite simply the FFA can't have Futsal taking some of the next generation of A-League players. We've hardly got enough top footballers as it is.

In Thailand the professional futsal league play their players $1500 per month. The players train twice a day.

In Australia Futsal has been left behind as the FFA swallowed all the football codes, indoor and outdoor, men and women.

Any young person playing Futsal would be well within their rights to ask "What have you done for me lately FFA."

Where is my National League, International Friendlies, Tournaments, prospects for the future.

How does Futsal fit into the National (Dutch) Technical Plan?