Futsal inBrazil is governed by theBrazilian Futsal Confederation. Although it is not the most popular spectator sport in the country, it is the most practiced.
Futsal was developed in Brazil andUruguay around the same time, in 1934 in Uruguay and in the 1940s in Brazil.[1] In Brazil the sport was developed byYMCA ofSão Paulo due to the lack of availablefootball fields.Basketball courts andhockey posts were used to practice the sport.[2]
In the 1950s, the first state futsal federations were founded, starting with the Federação Metropolitana de Futebol de Salão (Metropolitan Futsal Federation), ofRio de Janeiro state, founded on July 28, 1954, and currently known as Federação de Futebol de Salão do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro State Futsal Federation),[2] followed by the state federations ofMinas Gerais, also founded in 1954,São Paulo, in 1955,Ceará,Paraná,Rio Grande do Sul andBahia in 1956, and several others in the subsequent years.[1]
On June 15, 1979, theBrazilian Futsal Confederation was founded, inRio de Janeiro, after theBrazilian Sports Confederation (CBD), which was the responsible for the administration of several sports, folded. The founding states wereAcre,Alagoas,Amapá,Amazonas,Bahia,Ceará,Distrito Federal,Espírito Santo,Goiás,Paraíba,Paraná,Pernambuco,Maranhão,Mato Grosso,Minas Gerais,Rio de Janeiro,Rio Grande do Norte,Rio Grande do Sul,Santa Catarina,São Paulo, andSergipe. On August 27 of that year, Aécio de Borba Vasconcelos was elected as the organization's first president, andFortaleza was chosen as its headquarters.[3]
Futsal is played by most children in Brazil at some point. It combines the fast play and individual talent that is typical of Brazilian football. Many professional football players from Brazil started playing futsal. Perhaps the most notable of these wereFalcão andRonaldinho.
TheBrazil national team is very successful, winning several titles, such as theFIFA Futsal World Cup, theSouth American Futsal Championship, theGrand Prix de Futsal, and theFutsal Mundialito. Brazil also won the first edition of the sport at thePan American Games, in 2007.
The team was on a 167-game winning streak and was recently ended bySpain at the Grand Prix.
There are two national competitions, which are theLiga Futsal, and theTaça Brasil de Futsal. Liga Futsal started in 1996,[4] while Taça Brasil de Futsal is the oldest national futsal competition in Brazil, and started in 1968.[5] Also, each state federation organizes its own state championship.