Courtesy: Scottish FA


Snodgrass goes back to school for Futsal

Thursday, 06 September 2012

Snodgrass Goes Back to School to Launch Futsal Programme

Scotland and Norwich City star Robert Snodgrass returned to his former school in Glasgow today to launch a new initiative from the Scottish FA and National Team Sponsor, Vauxhall Motors, aimed at increasing participation of 12-18 year olds in football.

The Scotland midfielder returned to St Mungo’s Academy, to help launch the Vauxhall School Futsal programme. The initiative follows extensive research conducted by the Scottish FA highlighting a significant drop-out rate of players in this age group at secondary school due to the increase in pressures of exams, part time work, social calendar and boredom in traditional football.

Futsal, the fastest growing format for football in the world, is designed to embrace the fast-paced, skill based indoor alternative to the traditional game to re-engage young players and help reduce the fall out in this age group. St Mungo’s Academy are one of the first schools to sign up to the new programme and expect to see positive results in the very near future.

Snodgrass said: “It was great to see the pupils in my former school enjoying the Futsal games today and I am really pleased to be a part of the launch to a programme aimed at keeping young players in the game.

“Football has provided me with so many fantastic opportunities and I am glad St Mungo’s have supported the project.”

Chris Hornbuckle, Head of Sponsorship at Vauxhall, said; “We are delighted to announce our support to the new Vauxhall Schools Futsal programme in Scotland.

“It is vitally important for the future of the game that we continue to address the issues surrounding drop out at this age group and we will be working hard alongside the Scottish FA to help make a real difference in this area.

“Our commitment to football begins at grassroots and continues right through to the national senior teams for both men and women and the Futsal Schools Programme forms an important part of our sponsorship.”

Jim Fleeting, Scottish FA Director of Football Development, said: “The Vauxhall Schools Futsal programme will help us to make huge strides in tackling the dropout rate of young players.

“The laws of Futsal are designed to protect the skilful players, develop a player’s technique and encourage more goals which is ideal for this age group.

“The fast-past paced Futsal sessions take place in after school sessions during term time and are run by qualified Scottish FA coaches. The response has already been astounding and we have 18 schools taking part across the country.

“We are planning to extend the programme to all regions in the future and who knows some of the players taking part now could go on to represent Scotland at Futsal in the future.”

As part of the programme schools are provided with all of the new equipment required to play Futsal, which takes place indoors during the winter months and plans are already in place to hold Regional and National Futsal final competitions in 2013.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com