Couple of weeks ago, English Football Assocation surprisingly decided to cut funding to all of its futsal programs and to disband all futsal national teams. On FutsalFeed.com, we brought you an analysis of first reactions on this decision and our view of future of English futsal.
There has been a number of developments since then, but none of them are good for futsal in England. Players are left without any help from their FA whatsoever. England's national men's team will be disbanded once they have no more official matches left to play and they are expecting a UEFA Futsal EURO qualifying round play-off match against North Macedonia.
Unfortunately, they were even denied access to the futsal court in FA's National Training Centre.
Unfortunately, the England Futsal Team have no access to the futsal arena at the @fa National Training Centre so the self-supported players are preparing for our @UEFA qualifier by ourselves. Fortunately, one @England team is making use of the futsal court before their matches. pic.twitter.com/dM97uyX7eh
— Doug Reed (@DougReedFutsal) October 11, 2020
Players than decided to organize themselves and gather from all over the country to train in far from ideal conditions, as nothing but pure love for the game pushes them forward.
The actual national futsal team is training in less than ideal conditions covering the cost from their own pockets as FA have pulled all support for preparations but still expect us to fulfill our @UEFAFutsal Euro 2022 qualifier. pic.twitter.com/HZsmYB6wDm
— Doug Reed (@DougReedFutsal) October 11, 2020
National team players also came out with another statement in which they thank the futsal community for their support and in which they repeated a call to FA's CEO Mark Bullingham for a video conference call to defend their case.
We just want to thank everyone who’s supported us in England and around the world you don’t understand how much it means to us!! ❤️ we will continue to fight! pic.twitter.com/1v1W2yXd0V
— Liam Palfreeman (@liampalfreeman) October 12, 2020
In addition, read another FutsalFeed.com Original article and interview with one of England's most prominent futsal players and futsal promotors Doug Reed:
>>> Doug Reed: Futsal is a fantastic game - it will grow with or without the FA's involvement
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