Courtesy: FAI Futsal Portal


FAI Futsal Cup 2010 kicks off soon!

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

February sees the kick off of the fourth edition of the FAI Futsal Cup which began in 2007 and which has featured 16 League of Ireland clubs in each of the previous two seasons. Previous winners include Shamrock Rovers, St. Patrick’s Athletic and Cork City.
All winners have gone on to represent Ireland in the UEFA Futsal Cup in places such as Vienna and Helsinki.

However, this year will welcome a record entry of 32 teams with Junior teams having been invited for the first time.
The UEFA Futsal Cup is the most prestigious futsal club competition in the world and not even the great FC Barcelona have been able to qualify from Spain yet to play in it. Therefore, this represents a fantastic opportunity for juniors players, coaches and administrators.

The Junior Provincial administrators have been invited to nominate four junior teams to represent each of their respective provinces with the criteria being that teams can be either leagues representative selecteams or club teams. While Leinster has yet to confirm their four participants, the AUL have been the first league from Leinster to step up to the challenge.
The Ulster Senior League, Donegal League will have representative teams participating while Inishowen league will nominate two teams from their recent Futsal competition to complete the Ulster representation.
From Munster, The Clare District League has two representatives while the Kerry District League and Dunmanway town complete the Munster quota.
Connaught has confirmed Galway Hibernians and Corrib United along with a Roscommon League representative team with another local team to be confirmed.

The juniors will take their place alongside the likes of previous Futsal Champions Shamrock Rovers, Cork City St. Patrick’s Athletic and other League of Ireland luminaries. Another interesting fact is that newly established Futsal clubs such as Alpha Futsal Club, Dublin Santos FC, Blue Magic from the recently formed Emerald Futsal League will also participate for the first time.

The competition will take the form of a series of regional blitz days in Letterkenny, Galway, Limerick and Dublin and will result in 16 teams (8 of which will be Junior teams) qualifying for the knockout rounds. The finals weekend is due to be played at the impressive BRL Umbro Arena in Ballymun which was recently visited by the great Pele.

Said FAI Futsal Coordinator Derek O’Neill:
“It’s great that we now have a record entry of 32 teams for this competition which is becoming better every year. The inclusion of the Junior teams in the competition also broadens the base of players to choose from for the senior International Futsal team. Next year, we hope to participate in the qualifiers for the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2012 and perhaps a number of junior players will emerge from this competition who we can work with and may further strengthen the National team. Already we have players from the AUL and the Leinster senior League playing senior international Futsal and I’m positive that there are many unearthed gems playing in junior leagues around Ireland who may emerge during this competition.
The opportunity also for players to play in official UEFA club competition is also a big incentive particularly for the juniors who don’t often get opportunities such as this. I wish them all every success and hope they enjoy the experience of playing this increasingly popular and exciting sport of Futsal.”

Prem stars shine in Futsal competition
Current English Premiership Players who have played in the Futsal competition in recent seasons include Everton’s Seamus Coleman who played with Sligo, Birmingham City’s Jay O’Shea who represented Bray Wanderers and Cork City’s David Meyler who now plays for Sunderland while Irish legend, Gary Kelly played in 2008 for Drogheda United. Hopefully, the competition will feature more players of such calibre and be a hugely enjoyable experience for everyone.

Fixtures for the forthcoming competition will be posted on the site soon.

For a Player registration form please contact DONeill@fai.ie



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