Courtesy: The FA.com


Futsal Youth Festivals 2010

Wednesday, 16 December, 2009

Details of next year's plans for junior Futsal competitions.

The Football Association and the English Schools FA are working together to deliver an improved and enhanced National Youth Futsal Festival for 2010. The FA and ESFA are planning to establish a more structured competition pathway for this national event to primarily widen the number of young people that have the opportunity of getting involved in playing Futsal more frequently across the country.

The National Youth Futsal Festival will provide competition for U12, U14 and U16 boys and girls and the English Schools FA will be responsible for delivering the U12 element of the Festival, but The FA and the ESFA will work together to ensure successful delivery of the entire event with the support of County FAs, School Sports Partnerships and other partners.


National Youth Futsal Festival Structure
The FA and ESFA are introducing county and regional Futsal festivals that feed teams into the national finals. This is outlined in more detail below:

1. County Futsal Festivals (January to April 2010)
County Futsal Festivals will come in a variety of different formats depending upon existing Futsal structures that are in place within a county. These festivals will primarily build-on the school Futsal programmes that are running within many counties, especially within those 16 County FAs that will be identified as a Small Sided Football Focus County for 2010. However, running County Futsal Festivals is not restricted to focus small-sided County FAs.

It is expected that the majority of teams involved will be from schools, and indeed for the ESFA led U12 girls and boys tournament, all entrants must be from schools. It is important to note that all school teams that enter these Futsal festivals will need to be appropriately affiliated with the ESFA.

It is envisaged that the County Youth Festival will be run through a small working group led by either the ESFA or County FA, with the following parties supporting the group:-
• Schools Sports Partnerships
• Competition Managers
• Any other development agency (eg. local authority SDO, CSPs etc)

The format for a County Youth Futsal Festival is not prescriptive and can be decided by the working group as to what will work best. It could be a handful of inter-school Futsal leagues that take place around the county across a number of weeks with the winners playing against each other to determine the County champion, or it could be one county tournament with all teams playing over a day. The working group may also decide to only hold the festival for one age-group. It is ultimately at the discretion of the working group to determine what structure best fits their county.

There is no direct funding from The FA for these County Festivals; the expectation would be to use school facilities, and balls and goals that have been supplied to schools particularly through the focus small sided CFA programme.

It is important to note that these County Futsal Festivals will need to have been finished by April 2010.


2. Regional Futsal Festivals (April & May 2010)
Each of the eight FA regions will be expected to run a Regional Youth Futsal Festival. The U12 boys and girls regional event will be led by the ESFA, with The FA and County FAs taking charge of the U14 and U16 events. In practice, The FA and ESFA will work together to deliver a joined-up regional festival for all age-groups.

Similar to the County Festivals, a small working group will be established to coordinate each of the regional festivals. Each regional working group will be chaired by an ESFA Council member, and will include the two small sided football focus County FAs from the region. It could also include competition managers, County Sports Partnerships and any other partner that can assist in delivering the Regional Futsal Festival.

The format of the regional festival is again not prescriptive, and will vary from region to region depending on how many counties are participating and entering teams for the event. However, in some areas it is likely that the regional festival is held over two days in order to accommodate the different age-groups that are taking part. The Regional Festival will be primarily made up of school teams who won their County Festival, but the regional working group can agree to accept club teams if they are of a suitable Futsal standard in the U14 and U16 categories, but not in the U12s.


3. National Futsal Finals (2 & 3 July 2010)
The National Futsal Finals will be held at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield and will comprise of the winners from the Regional Futsal Festivals. The Finals will be organised and run by The FA and English Schools FA nationally. The ESFA will be responsible for the U12s boys and girls’ finals that will involve only schools, but these finals will take place at the same time as The FA organised national finals for the U14s and U16s.


What next?

If you are planning to hold a County Futsal Festival, then please email Lisa Williams and complete the attached form to ensure that we are aware of your event.






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com