1st Mediterranean Futsal Cup - Tournament Preview

by Damon Shaw & James Stringer from Tripoli

Libya kicked off the Mediterranean Futsal Cup on Monday evening in Tripoli with a 16-2 win over Syria after a spectacular opening ceremony fit for any major occasion. Lots of eyes will be firmly focused on the outcome of this competition, not just for the results but for how it is organised by the Libyan officials. They have huge aspirations to host the FIFA Futsal World Cup in the future along with submitting the sport into the Mediterranean games for the 2017 bid.

The Olympic Committee will be inspecting the event from the 2nd of November and promise to invest heavily to improve the infrastructure of the sport. It is also well worth noting that the Tripoli bid for the Olympic games is the only bid to date that includes the sport Futsal which would be a welcome change and a huge step forward for the up and coming sport which is still in its early days.

I seriously doubt that Libya would struggle to pull this off as they clearly have huge support from many friends and allies scattered all over the world. These links have and always will be vital for the development of the game itself. Libya itself should be considered the main mover for futsal in Africa and with this they should be pitted against the World’s top teams to prove that they can match anyone in the world, if not now then in the near future.

The Libyan government is firmly focused in supporting Futsal just like any other sport and has always stressed that the support is always there if it is needed. But it is not only Libya that is supporting the development of Libyan Futsal, Spain has forged strong links with the Libyan team and talks are ongoing to have the Spanish Futsal team over in Tripoli to take on the African champions.

Unfortunately we wont be seeing Spain, or other major Mediterranean country Italy in the MFC this year as they are committed to other competitions, but both have signalled their intents to enter future editions.

www.futsalplanet.com will be the official website of the championship, with all the news and reports from Tripoli. You can also follow the event on Twitter and Facebook for updates throughout the competition: search MedFutsalCup.


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