The development of futsal can be traced back to 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the same year the inaugural World Cup was held in the country. This early form of futsal was developed by Juan Carlos Ceriani to be played at YMCAs. Ceriani’s game was designed for five players per team, and could be played indoors or outdoors.At around the same time, a similar form of football played on basketball courts was being developed in São Paulo, Brazil. These new forms of football were quickly adopted throughout South America. The Brazilian Confederation of Sport instituted its first official rules for futebol de salão in 1958.
The international governing body FIFUSA (Federación Internacional de Fútbol de Salón, International Futsal Federation) was created in 1971 to administer the game, and held its first futsal world championship in São Paulo in 1982. Due to an apparent dispute with FIFA over the administration of fútbol, FIFUSA coined the word futsal in 1985.
FIFA soon began to administer its own futsal games, creating its own version of the rules and hosting its first futsal world championship in 1989 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. One of the most remarkable changes was the reduction of the ball weight and increase in ball size (from a handball size to a football size 4), which enabled faster play and, for the first time, scoring goals with the head (though this is still difficult and uncommon).
In 2002, members of PANAFUTSAL (La Confederación Panamericana de Futsal, The Pan-American Futsal Confederation) formed AMF (Asociación Mundial de Fútbol de Salón, World Futsal Association), an international futsal governing body independent of FIFA. Both FIFA and AMF continue to administer the game.
Some professional players start out with futsal to build fundamental skills. Brazilian players Ronaldinho, Robinho, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Juninho and many more started out playing futsal. There are also some notable players like Falcão who continues to play futsal at the club level.
