County’s first youth futsal league launches

3 October 2019 | Sports

A new youth league for the fast paced, technical, small sided game of futsal starts on Saturday, October 5 at Five Rivers Leisure Centre in Salisbury with four games played from 3pm to 7pm.

The Wiltshire Youth Futsal League, sanctioned and affiliated by Wiltshire FA, is initially for Under 14/15s with plans to expand into other age groups and increase participation with more players and teams.

The founding teams include Alderbury FC (pictured), Salisbury Rovers, Wessex Futsal, Durrington, Hatch Warren (pictured), Beggarwood and Bishops Cannings. Matches will be played roughly every three weeks, with six of eight dates confirmed at Five Rivers and the others in Basingstoke.

League founder and Aldebury coach Stuart Garnett said: “Futsal is an exciting sport that encourages technical skill and creativity with loads more touches of the ball compared to football.”

“Children in countries like Spain and Portugal grow up playing futsal and the growth of the sport in this country can only be a benefit. I’m delighted there are other likeminded people keen to develop the sport in this county.

“Massive thanks to Wiltshire College sports department for their backing to the league and to the support from Wiltshire FA.”

Futsal is a fast-growing sport that originated in South America and has honed the skills of world class footballers like Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar. The FA recently published a six-year strategy to develop futsal in England and established a partnership with Pokémon to raise the appeal to children.

All are welcome to watch the games on Saturday and teams or players keen to know more about the league should get in touch with the organisers via Twitter or Instagram on @futsalwiltshire, Stuart added.