Dansk Boldspil-Union, Denmark
Sept 23 2005
English Futsal on the up
Gary Macbeth, event director of the UEFA Futsal Cup preliminary round
in London, says the event has shown how the game in England is
developing.
Competitive European Futsal came to the capital of England for the
first time last week – and the finish could not have been more
exciting.
Heartbreaking exit
Hosts London White Bear FC, having lost to Dinamo Tirana but defeated
France’s Roubaix Futsal, went into their last UEFA Futsal Cup
preliminary round game needing what seemed an unlikely two-goal win
against experienced Tal Grig Yerevan, and the odds increased when the
Armenian champions scored after only ten seconds. But London
equalised early in the second half and took the lead late on, and
when the whistle went there was some number crunching before they
realised that Yerevan and Dinamo Tirana had pipped them on
head-to-head record, on goals scored.
Praise for city
The chance to come to London was relished by the visiting teams.
Roubaix president Messaoud Ferkioui said: “We have learned so much
just being in London, it has confounded our expectations. It is as
beautiful as Paris!” Yerevan coach Ruben Nazaretyan added: “We
enjoyed it – thank you London!”
English improvement
London’s performance shows the development that is taking place in
English Futsal, as promoted by the Football Association (FA) and the
burgeoning leagues. One prominent example is the Futsal Premier
League (FPL), whose CEO Gary Macbeth was the event director of the
mini-tournament at the Crystal Palace National Sports Arena.
‘Fantastic experience’
Eastern European-influenced London are the current FPL champions, and
Macbeth told uefa.com: “This truly was a fantastic experience for our
team in hosting this event and bringing European competition to our
shores. The opportunity to offer a higher level of Futsal was a real
treat and we hope the Futsal fans that came out to support the event
thought so too. For me personally, I think it was also a huge success
in demonstrating the positive results that can come from UEFA and the
FA working with league organisations like the FPL to advance Futsal.”
‘Desperately unlucky’
Macbeth was certainly pleased with London’s performance in
representing his league and English Futsal. “Having not seen the
other teams, I had no idea really what to expect from them or how
well the White Bear team would do,” he said. “They were desperately
unlucky not to qualify. Winning two games, including coming from
behind and beat the group winners Yerevan, is a testimony to the
improvement in Futsal in this country over the last few years.”
Brazilian influence
He added: “The standards have raised here in the UK.. The competitive
league structure is going from strength to strength. The Futsal
Premier League is fortunate in that we benefit from a strong presence
of Brazilian and Eastern European teams. This is a definite help in
raising the level of the game overall.”
Future years
Next year’s English representatives will be Doncaster College for the
Deaf from the Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA’s Elite Futsal
league, who beat London in this year’s national finals. But there is
no doubt that London’s performance on their European debut has raised
the expectations for English teams, and Macbeth hopes that
improvement will continue.
Benefit gained
“I think the teams know now they can compete in Europe,” he said.
“There’s still a long way to go, but only by competing at that level
can teams learn what it will take. The cost of international fixtures
is high of course, but the benefit from the experience is significant
and obvious. It’s our hope of course to continue now in working
closely with UEFA and the FA, but any sponsors out there who love
football, should seriously take a look at Futsal.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress