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International Competitions - September 15, 2024 01:00The biggest own goal, with our assistNot a sport, just a soccer ramificationby Luca Ranocchiari - Futsalplanet.com editor

Even us. Even a community that is often weak and dormant. Somehow, they succeeded. FIFA (who? just a young and unaware social media manager or some brilliant and well paid "strategist"?) managed to provoke a reaction in our little world, although this was definitely (and hopefully) not their intention.

Looks like an endless story, which began with the celeber and unforgettable "futsal is not a sport but just a soccer ramification" quote by Mario Vázquez Raña back in 2007 (forgot it? click here!), in order to explain why our game had not been included in the Pan American Games 2011 edition in Guadalajara.

Cause of the scandal? An image introducing the worldwide challenge in which we can admire the drawing of four football players, followed by this caption: "The game that helped develop some of football's biggest stars takes centre stage in Uzbekistan!".

Option 1: the choice is so naively inappropriate that was probably done by some novice hire
Option 2: this is the actual perception of our game in FIFA headquarters, the usual "tool for football players"
Option 3: this is the FIFA policy to attract some football audience addressing it towards futsal

Anyhow, no good news to kick off the World Cup. Fortunately, the pitch and the game itself are always ready to restore our faith and passion, and today we could watch four great games.

But we have to be honest, we need to be honest. We're guilty as the author of that masterpiece. Because it's mainly our fault, if anyone still sees us and treats us this way. The truth is that futsal is managed, in many places, by football people. People who are not passionate about the game, people who dream about jumping to a football assignment one day.

The truth is that complaining on social networks won't change the reality (or at least some bad points affecting futsal) of FIFA, Confederations, National FAs and so on.

Our "one-day" reactions are not enough to determine a change: what happened for the Women's Word Cup is there to prove it. Just after years of pressure we managed to "force" the girls challenge introduction, something that should have been there since decades.

The truth is that we keep on singing choruses on the Olympic Games, when there is today no need at all for futsal to be included in the programme. We need foundations for our building first: youth futsal, clubs structure, institutions and their people committed to the game in "deeds and not words". The OG would just be one more high standard tournament in our international fixture (amazing for sure, no doubts!) but they are far from being a solution or a real support to the game.

There's no need to explain this: just look at what happens for the majority of unknown sports in the OG: two week of glory and almost four years of silence, more or less the same which happens between futsal and FIFA (fortunately with the Women's challenge things will improve) during the World Cup.

Now back to the "option 3". This is the scariest. This is the one that reveals who is hiding behind the mask of a futsal enthusiast. How on earth can we accept and agree to be promoted through football, when we are another thing? How can we attract more audience basically saying that we exist just in order to improve the future skills of the future football stars?

Come on, it's not a futsal vs football silly fight. It's just a "futsal for futsal" matter. This is another game, if soccer clubs want to use it to improve their players development, then fine. But this can't never be (as currently and sadly is) a way to introduce futsal to the audience. From our point of view a young boy playing futsal should become the new Manoel Tobias, the new Pany Varela, the new Pito. Then, if he dreams about turning into a football player, no troubles: personal choices and ambitions will never be a subject of discussion.

But the context... the context has been dramatically wrong, indefensible: even assuming the best intentions you can't never publish such image in the opening day of a World Cup, when everybody is salivating at the idea of enjoying the greatest futsal players.

It's just like an own goal, but our community is guilty for the assist.

But don't worry, this is just an image. Let's get worried and fight for the actual development, the true commitment, for the best sport on earth. Deeds, not words. Action, not slogans. Futsal, not football.
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