Drawing courtesy: Kizaz.com

by Luca Ranocchiari - Futsalplanet.com editor

Why not? And above all: when? There's a thousand futsal refrains but the one regarding the Olympic Games matter is, no doubts, one of the most famous.

The modern mirrors of our souls, also known as social networks, are the clear proof of the "crying invasion" on this point, showing a multitude of desperate people who claim that futsal must enter the Olympic Games!. Spanish, portuguese, italian texts, every language is joining the heartfelt and unheard appeal gaining a "rain of likes" (call them... satisfactions) but no actual achievements.

Also, the idea of being part of the Olympic Games is often (or I'd better say always) matched with the immediate resolution of all futsal troubles... something more effective than a movie sorcerer (a weird argumentation considering that some sports are exhumed just during the OG and have no life in the "between days/years).

So that, every four years, as soon as an official note like this comes out (CLICK HERE) the litany starts again: why not? when? why not even in Brazil, land of futsal?

A rain of questions without any proposed answer, but actually a rain of... crocodile tears.

Many years ago we (Futsalplanet.com) have introduced a kind of campaign in favour of our sport access in the Olympic Games, and we obviously still believe that this would help (or at least would not affect) the game. This then turned into a worldwide trend, especially since the campaign was run by Marcos Diniz, at that time working for the Paulista futsal federation (FPFS).

But, from my perspective, is maybe time to point out the real purpose of it which boils down, in essence, to an attempt to give a strong impulse to the game development. And development, sorry to say, doesn't mean Olympic Games and not even spotlights on the pathetic fight and run for "social network likes".

On the opposite is all about working in the shadow in order to get things right for futsal. And "things" are a lot of stuff: youth and women futsal, sports facilities and clubs structure, FIFA, Confederations and National FAs real support (if and when missing) through people actually committed to this "variant of football" (!?), unification of futsal (in terms of management and laws of the game) under a unique organization running it worldwide and many other crucial points.

We want to enter the Olympic Games but who are we? Which is the real futsal? AMF, FIFA? Private companies setting up leagues "for the good of the game", what else? Who runs the sport in India, who manages futsal in the USA? Which one is the real World Cup, the official EURO Futsal? A futsal game lasts 40, 50 minutes or is that splitted into "quarters"?

Will we be ready to explain our identity when "asking to enter" the quadriennal event? And who's gonna "ask"? FIFA, replacing the current soccer Under 23 tournament or the AMF organization (as they recently claimed to have done)?
I repeat: who are we? There are no serious efforts to discover it.

And are we really gonna enter a prestigious "national teams" challenge when the FAs majority are unable to create futsal players and feature brazilian boys in their rosters? Would this be beneficial?

And will we set up youth teams just in order to see the boys finding their way in the eleven-a-side sport (or version of the same game as somebody like to say), as we're just a "tool" for it?

Or are we ready to recover some pride and affirm we just are a different sport? Well, in order to do this we should need more real lovers of futsal and less people trying to get employed in the important roles provided by the "elder brother".

IDENTITY, that's what futsal lost and right now misses. And every time we introduce our main events through "football stars" we lose a good percentage of our essence, as we show to depend on another sport in order to exist. It looks like people are scared to shout to the world "they are futsal fans": are we in need of soccer authorization to do that?

There would be some thousands points of "things to be fixed" in futsal, and neither youtube highlights nor "social networks likes" will work in order to fix them. Not even opinion articles like this, obviously.

To be honest I'm not gonna fight anymore to support crusades asking for futsal to enter the Olympic Games. But I'll try my best to help MY SPORT finding back its identity and get a life, its real one.

I strongly believe that when futsal will be "ONE" and people truly committed to it we will be conquering much more than the Olympic Games. And futsal will gain back the pride to exist for what it actually is in my opinion: the best sport on earth.

I support futsal!