Jurisdiction Europa Founded 1985 (1985) | Category Sports federation Abbreviation UEFS | |
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Affiliation Asociación Mundial de Fútbol de Salón | ||
The Union Europea de Futsal (UEFS) is the international sporting association for futsal in Europe. Its name has been directly translated into many languages, and in English has been known as both the European Futsal Association and the European Union of Futsal. It was founded in 1988 in Madrid, then transferred to Moscow in Russia. The UEFS is affiliated to the Asociación Mundial de Fútbol de Salón (AMF), and is the European governing body for futsal under the AMF regulations.
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The UEFS involves more than twenty national federations, among which Australia and Israel too.
UEFS organizes men’s and women’s tournaments for both national and club’s teams. In women’s area, the activity started in 2001 in Russia with the national teams: Championships that took place were both won by the Russian national team. Clubs’ tournaments like men’s ones take place since 2004.
Recently UEFS (futsal) and UEFA (football) have been discussing the European futsal management. UEFS is a specific governing body for futsal and UEFA has the futsal as a committee beside football. UEFS has been organizing European Championships several years before UEFA organized their own.
National teams
The first competition organized was the European Championship that took place in Madrid in 1989. This kind of competition was first dominated by Iberian teams: Portugal won in 1989 and 1990 – in 1991 was also world-beater – and Spain in 1992. Afterwards it was dominated by Eastern teams: Slovakia won in 1995, Russia in 1998 and Belarus in 2004. Now UEFS stages the European Championship biennially.
Clubs
In 1991, UEFS organized the first tournament for club’s teams: the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, which takes place regularly every year in a different site, except for 2000. In 1995 this competition was put side by side by UEFS Cup that, after being first occasional – 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000 -, now takes place yearly.