The origins of

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

date back to 2001. At that time, some indoor football enthusiasts contacted the

Swedish Football Association The Swedish Football Association ( sv, Svenska Fotbollförbundet, SvFF) is the governing and body of football in Sweden. It organises the football leagues – Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women – and the men's and women's nati ...

(SvFF) and asked them for advice on how to play indoor soccer more seriously with futsal. Also at that time, there was a proposal from the SvFF development group not to adapt to futsal and to remain with

five-a-side ''Five-A-Side'' is the debut album by the pop rock band Ace, released by Anchor Records in 1974. The album landed on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, reaching #11 in 1974. The single " How Long" reached #3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the sp ...

. These

indoor soccer Indoor soccer or arena soccer (known internationally as indoor football, fast football, or showball) is five-a-side version of minifootball, derived from association football and adapted to be played in walled hardcourt indoor arena. Indoor socc ...

enthusiasts aborted their proposal which led them into carrying out further investigations on futsal before taking any decision. These indoor football enthusiasts, now

enthusiasts, contacted

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

for advice. They arranged a meeting with UEFA and were advised not to do anything that the SvFF disliked. UEFA also advised them not to wait for the SvFF's approval and to proceed with their own ideas of development. With UEFAs help they got a "letter of recommendation" from FIFA that said the group was "certified" as Swedish futsal developers. This letter opened up many doors in the SvFF and other institutions. The group approached clubs, authorities, manufacturers and media companies who could further benefit the development of futsal. They launched a website
futsal.se
that would serve as a portal for all futsal matters in Sweden and at the same time to put more pressure on the SvFF to act. In 2002, they started the first Swedish futsal championship. They have got 12

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

clubs from

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

of the 2-4th division to participate. It stirred up some dust in the SvFF who now had something to make a decision upon. As the football clubs increasingly liked futsal, SvFF made a proposal to the soccer movement to adapt to futsal in favour of five-a-side in 2006. From 2008 SvFF rules futsal in Sweden with the networ
Swedish Futsal
pushing on.

References

External links

Swedish Futsal
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