Women’s futsal, Falconara aims for Europe

Falconara is one step away from the roof of Europe. From Monday, in the Marche region, the top women’s futsal teams competed in the European Women’s Futsal Tournament, the best continental tournament for clubs. The Italian champions of the City of Falconara will play the final, live on Sky Sport Calcio (channel 202) tonight at 21 against Benfica. Massi Neri’s team, formerly awarded the Gold Bench by the FIGC’s Technical Sector, arrived there after overtaking the Dutch team of Vijfje and the Hungarian team of Deac, thus presenting themselves at the rendezvous with history. To date, however, the EWFT is still an invitational tournament, not recognized by UEFA, which watches from afar waiting to make an official decision. However, a decision was finally made a few days ago by FIFA, announcing a turning point that the entire movement had been waiting for for years: the establishment of a women’s World Cup. Engaged on the pitch in Falconara, but also touched to the heart by the world championship question, Taty, the absolute star of the Marches and captain of the Brazilian Seleçao, commented: “The World Cup? Better late than never. In the past we have played six competitions (invitation tournaments all won by Brazil of her, ndr), but there was the risk of remaining six plastic cups without real recognition”.

IT WORLD

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For days, in the important rooms of football, there was talk of a programmatic document circulated in FIFA circles: a tweet on the official profile of the world‘s leading football body was enough, a few minutes after the end of the pre-final World Council in Qatar, to make thousands dream of female players, the first to move loudly shouting the slogan “Women’s Play Futsal FIFA”. A howl that, at the beginning of November, went out in Spain from the AJFS (the international association of female futsal players) and which went around the world: the social media campaign immediately went viral and the video, seen by over a million people, it also ended up on Infantino’s table. Now the World Cup is a reality, there is no turning back from here: but it is only a first step, because to date we do not know when or how we will start (we are talking about a generic 2025). The answers that FIFA will have to give to these questions will not be long in coming, but on the other hand now we can no longer hide.

THE CHAMPIONS

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The World Cup is not only an important step for the recognition of the entire futsal system, but also for the theme of themes: the Olympic dream. The twittering of FIFA is a message directly delivered to the IOC, because having a men’s World Cup (which will see its tenth edition in 2024) and a women’s one is one of the sine qua non conditions for landing the ball with controlled rebound in the magical planet of the five you look for. But it’s a letter that also flies straight to Nyon, on the UEFA tables that got caught in the wrong time: as mentioned, women’s futsal lacks a real women’s Champions League (in the men’s we are at the 22nd edition). FIFA has answered the call, UEFA and the IOC will have to close the circle. “They can no longer ignore us – Taty remarks again – we are not satisfied with the World Cup, we also want the Champions League”.