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History of Futsal

Futsal started in 1930 when Juan Carlos Ceriani, a teacher in Montevideo, Uruguay, created a version of indoor football for YMCAs. Originally developed for basketball courts, a rule book for the new sport was published in September 1933. Association football was already highly popular in the country, and after Uruguay won the 1930 World Cup and gold medals in the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics, it attracted even more practitioners. Ceriani’s goal was to create a team game similar to football that could be played indoors or outdoors.

While writing the rule book, Ceriani combined the principles of association football—where the ball may be touched with every part of the body except the hands or upper part of the arms—with rules from other sports: from basketball, the number of players (five per team) and the game’s duration (40 active minutes); from water polo, the goalkeeping rules; and from team handball, the field and goal sizes.

The YMCA spread the game quickly throughout South America. It was easily played by everyone, everywhere, and in any weather condition, helping players of other sports stay in shape all year round. These reasons convinced João Lotufo, a Brazilian, to bring the game to his country and adapt it to the needs of physical education.

Initially, the rules were not uniform. In 1956, the rules were modified by Habib Maphuz and Luiz Gonzaga de Oliveira Fernandes within the YMCA of São Paulo, Brazil, to allow seniors to compete. Luiz de Oliveira wrote the Book of Rules of Futsal in 1956, then adopted also at the international level.

In 1965, the Confederación Sudamericana de Futsal (South American Futsal Confederation) was created, consisting of Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru and Argentina.