NEW DELHI: A year after the All India Football Federation set out its road map for the launch of a futsal league in India the AIFF has reportedly appointed former player and current director of the Association of Indian Football Coaches (AIFC) to handle operations.
Nair, who has been handed the responsibility for incorporating the Futsal body, told Times of India that work has already started and is currently in progress.
“In India, the problem is lack of space. Since futsal is mostly played 5v5 or 6v6, it is a way forward for us to become a footballing superpower. It’s a fast-paced game and excellent ball control is needed since kids anyway don’t play on full-sized grounds, futsal is ideal for their progression,” he told the daily.
For Nair, one need not look further than Asian football powerhouse Iran to understand the value the short format skill-based version of the Beautiful Game brings to countries like India.
“Iran owes most of their success to futsal. They take the game very seriously and it’s the reason why they’ve developed so much. In fact, the only place where you can get an AFC level 3 coaching license in Iran,” he told TOI.
Henry Menezes, CEO of Western India Football Association (WIFA) also confirmed that new leagues are already being planned by the country’s top-most football body.
“The AIFF understands the importance of futsal and many competitions in the state and national level are being planned. We are focusing a lot of age-group teams and we believe futsal will help to create a wider base as far as the younger age groups are concerned,” said Menezes.
It bears noting that while the AIFF kicked off the AFC Futsal Development Programme on August 8, 2017, it was in October that AIFF general secretary Kushal Das offered SportzPower a time line of activity for the launch of a professional futsal league in India, working in tandem with their commercial partners Football Sports Development Ltd.
Das said the process for creating a coach/referee education system had already been inititated and once ready, workshops would be conducted in four pilot states, the end aim being to be able to offer Level 1 and Level 2 coach education courses so that a proper framework for the development and growth of futsal was in place.
Queried then as to the time frame for the launch of an AIFF endorsed professional futsal league in the country, Das said while a March-April window was being explored, a more realistic expectation would be for the debut of the event in the second half 2018.
That time-line appears impractical at this point so a March-April 2019 window could well be in the works.
Even as the AIFF sets forth its plans, the promoters of Premier Futsal, India’s first professional league of the abridged version of football, look to have given up on going further with their endeavour.
For the record, Premier Futsal was bankrolled by Xavier Britto, chairman, Kerry Indev Logistics. Additionally, the promoters have roped in Kiran Kumar, of Lalitha Jewellery, as a key investor in Premier Futsal Management Pvt Ltd, the controlling entity of the league.
Premier Futsal had Sony Pictures Sports Networks India (SPSN) as its broadcast partner in the subscontinent for the two editions that were delivered.
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