Abstract: In England, four million people regularly play five-a-side football, which is more than the three million who participate in the eleven-a-side game. The sport’s popularity has been monetised with commercial five-a-side football operators generating profits of up to £6 million from a turnover of £16 million, making them more profitable than many professional football clubs. However, there is no coherent market and standards of Laws, discipline and affiliation are inconsistent. Some providers have even created their own autonomous football federation rather than affiliate with the FA.
This version of five-a-side football is unique to the United Kingdom. Futsal is the most popular form of small-side football and is now played in 170 nations by an estimated 30 million players around the world. The sport has traditionally been promoted and administered by autonomous organisation, with some groups affiliating to the Asociación Mundial de Fútbol de Salón (AMF) and the European Union of Futsal (UEFS). Despite having originated in the 1930s, FIFA did not recognise the sport until 1988, with UEFA launching its first futsal competition a year later. The sport is therefore fragmented, and the Laws of the game can be inconsistent between countries and competitions.
The FA has sought to develop its role in both five-a-side football and futsal. It has had to promote futsal – a sport that is played by only a few hundred teams – while ensuring that it does not marginalise the more popular (and more lucrative) traditional five-a-side game. Its role is compounded by the belief of some of the FA’s stakeholders that the growth of small-sided football has been to the detriment of the eleven-a-side game, which has suffered from declining participation. The performance of the England futsal team, which has yet to win a match after 36 matches, has not helped to enhance the profile of the sport.
Using the role of the FA in England as a case study, this paper will examine the governance of five-a-side football and futsal and will address the following topics:
- The differences in how five-a-side football and futsal are governed from the management of eleven-a-side football.
- The governance models for futsal that have been utilised by football associations and futsal federations worldwide.
- The strategies that national governing bodies can adopt to engage with providers of unaffiliated football.
