The Premier Futsal League was an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

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

league conceptualised by Indian

entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

under the

entity An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually ...

of Premier Futsal Management Pvt. Ltd. It was founded by Abhinandan Balasubramanian, Dinesh Raj and Nithyashree Subban, backed by business magnate Xavier Britto and his wife, philanthropist Vimala Britto.

Format

Each playing team consists of three international futsal players, one international marquee football player and one Indian futsal player. Every squad is allowed a maximum of twelve players. Premier Futsal conducted a talent hunt programme across eight cities called ''Launchpad'' to scout and select Indian players. The programme combed through 2500 participants per city to shortlist five regional players for each team. Mumbai 5's won the inaugural Premier Futsal by defeating Kochi 5's in the penalty shootout.

Management team

* Xavier Britto - Chairman &

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

of Premier Futsal, founder & chairman of Estell group of

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

s & Kerry Indev

Logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

& Indev Logistics * Dinesh Raj -

Managing Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

director of Premier Futsal, Guinness World Record holder for creating the India's largest

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

national flag * Abhinandan Balasubramanian - CEO of Premier Futsal, founder of AltFlo & ChefHost * Nithyashree Subban -

Director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

of Finance & Strategy, Premier Futsal * Vimala Britto - Director of Premier Futsal,

Correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

- Britto Group of

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s, founder & chairperson - Seek

Foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

, a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

Brand ambassadors

Indian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

team

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

Virat Kohli Virat Kohli (; born 5 November 1988) is an Indian international cricketer and former captain of the India national cricket team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time, Kohli plays as a right-handed batter for Royal Challe ...

has joined the Premier Futsal as its

brand ambassador A brand ambassador (sometimes also called a corporate ambassador) is a person engaged by an organization or company to represent its brand in a positive light, helping to increase brand awareness and sales. The brand ambassador is meant to emb ...

. Premier Futsal attracted a lot of fans when they signed the one of the best futsal players in the world,

Alessandro Rosa Vieira Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baricco ...

, popularly known as Falcão. On 12 May 2016, Virat Kohli along with Falcão facilitated the launch of the nationwide talent hunt to select 40 players who will represent their respective

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

in the first

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

of Premier Futsal.

Anthem

The Premier Futsal anthem ''Naam Hai Futsal'' had its tunes set by two-time

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

winner A.R.Rahman with vocals also provided by Karthik,

Lady Kash Kalaivani Nagaraj, known professionally as Lady Kash, is a rapper/songwriter from Singapore who started her solo career professionally in 2007. Rapping fluently in English and Tamil, Lady Kash has worked with music composers including A. R. Rahma ...

and

Previous teams

Results

By season

Telecast

Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd. acquired exclusive rights to broadcast Premier Futsal. As part of the agreement, all Premier Futsal matches will be televised live on

Sony SIX Sony Sports Ten 5 (formerly Sony Six) is an Indian English-language pay television sports channel operated by Culver Max Entertainment. It is part of the Sony Sports Network. History Sony SIX was launched in April 2012 by Sony Pictures Netwo ...

Sony ESPN Sony ESPN was an Indian pay television sports channel which was a joint venture between ESPN Inc. and Sony Pictures Networks India. The channel targeted the Indian subcontinent including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It was part of ...

and

Sony Aath Sony AATH is an Indian Bengali-language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Culver Max Entertainment, with programming mostly consisting of television series from SET India dubbed in Bengali. It was launched in 2009 as Channel ...

. Matches will also be available to live stream on

Sony LIV SonyLIV is an Indian over-the-top freemium streaming platform owned by Culver Max Entertainment. SonyLIV was introduced in 2013 as the first OTT service in India. As a streaming service, it is carrying content from its local networks, inc ...

. In Indonesia, all Premier Futsal matches also broadcast live on nonton.com (2016 only) and Super Soccer TV (from

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

References

External links

* {{National sports leagues of India 2016 establishments in India Futsal competitions in Asia Futsal in India Professional sports leagues in India Sports leagues established in 2016