New Futsal season kicks off Friday

The new season of Futsal Namibia will kick off its league activities at the Windhoek Showgrounds on Friday.

The Futsal football league, which had 20 teams in the previous edition, this time registered 30 teams - 10 teams per category in the First Division, Under-17s, and Ladies’ teams.

Futsal is played on a hard court, smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Futsal Namibia founder Andrei Tirtirau said the league aims to expand to all regions in the country, but will this season only have teams in Windhoek and Swakopmund competing against each other.

“We are trying to have a roadshow, where we can take our equipment to the regions to sensitise the people about the game. We hope with the 2021 Futsal World Cup having ended in Europe where Portugal was the winner, those competing in our league picked up some skills as well as learned new rules which were used by the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) Futsal World Cup,” he stated.

Tirtirau added that Futsal Namibia got a boost with the support of Express Credit, who will be funding their activities for this year.

“We are still busy engaging the Namibia Football Association to have our league registered as the official Futsal body in the country because by next year, we want to start with our premier league,” he said. Meanwhile, Futsal Namibia league director Abisai Simon said the season is going to run until next year.

“The exciting part will be us hosting a competition in December in Swakopmund as part of creating awareness for those who want to play Futsal football,” he enthused.

The league director added that their goal for the next two years is to create a premier league, but that can only happen when their First Division is successfully branched out to most regions in the country.

Express Credit will this season be sponsoring Futsal Namibia with N.dollars 88 000 for their running operations.

Meanwhile, X-Men won the Open Social category last season, while Tura Magic won the women’s competition. Athletics Club Football Academy won the Under-17 division.