Courtesy: FIFA.com

Spain helping futsal become big in Japan

(FIFA.com) 24 Oct 2005

One year ago the RFEF signed a collaborative agreement with Japanese firm TSS to promote the coaching and practice of futsal among the country’s youth. The company operates in a wide range of businesses sectors, ranging from transport to food, and owns six sporting facilities across Japan that offer a vast array of sports as well as coaching schools to children between the ages of 6 and 14.
Although futsal was one of the most requested sports at the facilities, the coaching models were based on the imitation of other methods and provided less than satisfactory results.

Thus, the company’s sporting directors decided to seek advice from experts in Spain, a country that has twice been world champion. Subsequent discussions led to the establishment of a collaborative project between the Japanese and Spanish, which Javier Lozano, Spain’s national team coach and the RFEF’s futsal chief, agreed to head up. “Our teaching model promotes a range of sporting and non-sporting values ranging from better teamwork to an appreciation of solidarity through sport. The Japanese decided to adopt our philosophy and put this youth coaching project into practice,” Lozano tells FIFA.com.

From October 2004 to April 2005, Lozano’s principal work involved training the new instructors and the Japanese coach, although his main role now is the supervision of the project. “I visit Japan every two months or so to tour the centres where the classes are being given. I give advice on how methods can be further improved and what changes need to be made on the theory side of things or in the organisation of the training sessions,” he explains. The instructors and coordinators of the coaching sessions in Japan also regularly visit Spain to see first hand the application of the methods.

Promoting the sport
As well as setting up this specific training programme, the RFEF is also advising their Japanese partners on the creation of a professional league and the construction of a covered futsal arena on which work is scheduled to start on in October.

The publicity campaign ahead of the project’s launch has been extensive, with exposure in the leading communication media, widespread advertising on the trains and vehicles of TSS transport and the distribution of some 400,000 leaflets. This huge effort has resulted in 2,300 children registering at the centres, a number well in excess of even the most optimistic estimates.

Now having completed the initial period of promotion and consolidation, plans are afoot to expand the programme right across the country. “It’s a very ambitious programme that is functioning very well. We have a five-year contract and estimate that by the time that concludes we could have between 8,000 and 10,000 children learning to play futsal in Japan,” adds the national team coach.

Moreover, there have been various offers to buy the franchise by owners of sporting facilities in Japan, as well as keen TV interest. A soon-to-be-finalised contract with one network will see a weekly hour-long programme on Spanish futsal, showing interviews, reports and round-ups from one of the world’s top leagues. With many of the game’s leading figures as role models, interest in the sport can only grow.

There is no question that futsal is the taking off in Japan as the country puts in place the infrastructure that could see it become a major player in the sport in the not too distant future.



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