Courtesy: UEFA.com

Dozen in line for Futsal finals

Monday, 29 May 2006

The UEFA European Futsal Championship is to increase to 12 teams for the 2009 finals in another major step forward for the sport's development.

Superpower story
The competition has been staged with eight teams ever since gaining full UEFA recognition for the inaugural finals in 1999. Since then it has largely been a story of the superpowers with Spain winning twice in 2001 and 2005, along with Russia in 1999 and Italy in 2003. The other two élite nations are Ukraine, twice runners-up, and Portugal.

Extra motivation
Following endorsement by the Executive Committee in Scotland last week, UEFA hopes the addition of four more sides at the finals will give more opportunities of top-level competition to smaller nations, with currently only the likes of Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Belgium being able to challenge. UEFA Futsal manager Laurent Morel said: "With 12 teams, it will open the door to other countries to qualify. It will in turn motivate their associations to invest in domestic Futsal."

New format
Early suggestions for the format are four groups of three teams, with the first two from each going forward to the quarter-finals as a knockout system comes into play. "This will bring much more impact to the competition and, aside from a few exceptional cases, will leave teams the chance to qualify until their last match. The top teams should then only meet at a later stage," Morel added.

Media benefits
There will also be benefits in terms of media promotion, with more chances for television broadcasts of games and working with national sponsors. Nor will countries hoping to emulate Portugal, hosts of the next finals in November 2007, have to alter their bid approach too much as, since the 2003 finals, two halls have been used and this would still be possible with the 12-team format.

Further increase
Morel said: "Given the evolution of Futsal and the new emerging countries, we do not expect at all that the level will decrease. On the contrary, the teams ranked eighth to 15th are nowadays strong opponents for the superpowers." It may actually be that the 12-side format is a short-lived phase, with plans already afoot for increasing the finals to a 16-team event with at least 45 countries involved in qualifying. Onwards and upwards for Futsal.




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