Courtesy: Jakarta Post


College futsal league to source nat'l talent

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Soccer Association of Indonesia's Jakarta chapter is organizing the third Djarum Super Futsal League 2006 from Nov. 18 to Dec. 1 to recruit university students into the national team.

"We hope to use the event to scout talent from universities as they have a lot of potential to supply futsal players .. at the international level," chapter chairman Ferry Paulus said Tuesday.

Students from 24 universities in the Greater Jakarta area will compete in the Rp 28 million (US$3,060) league at the East Jakarta sports hall and the Bung Karno basketball hall in Senayan, Central Jakarta.

Ferry said Indonesia badly needed to find new talent in futsal because the sport would be played in an exhibition event at next year's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand.

Indonesia University Sports Agency (Bapomi) Jakarta chapter chairman Aris Akbar said the body had registered at least 40 universities with futsal teams.

"Futsal is becoming more organized and structured in terms of its organization. It has also become popular on campuses because the sport requires a relatively smaller space (to play in) compared to soccer," he said.

Bapomi sent four teams from the Perbanas Business School, the Jakarta Muhammadiyah University, the National Unversity of Indonesia and the STEI business college to compete at the regional-level Futsal Fiesta Tournament in Selangor, Malaysia, from Aug. 17-21.

"The Perbanas Business School finished third in the tournament," Aris said, adding the tournament was won by a Thai university, with a Malaysian college coming second.

Jakarta Sports Agency head Taufik Yudi Mulyanto welcomed the new futsal league and promised to support the sport.

The league will be divided into a main and first division, with each split into two groups of six teams to play in a round-robin tournament.

Among the participating teams will be major private and state universities, including the University of Indonesia, the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, and the Bina Nusantara, Atmajaya and Trisakti universities.



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