Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Express Credit Futsal League reaches its climax this weekend when the finals will be held at the Windhoek Showgrounds.
After a keenly contested league which already started in October last year, the top teams have reached the final knockout stages with the winners in the men and women’s categories as well as the u17 boys and girls categories set to be crowned over the weekend.
In the men’s competition, the top four teams of both the A and B categories have qualified for the quarterfinals, which get underway at 08h00 on Saturday morning.
The quarterfinal matchups will see Faical Futsal taking on Windhoek North FC, Quality FC taking on Duro Nation, the defending champions X Men taking on SBS Trucks, and Selecau from Swakopmund taking on Chile Futsal.
The winners will progress to the semifinals which start at 14h00, while the final is scheduled to start at 17h00.
The women’s semifinals start at 18h00 tomorrow evening, with the defending champions Tura Magic taking on Right Way FC, while Ramblers I take on Khomas Nampol at 19h00.
The winners will progress to the final at 13h00 on Saturday.
The Boys u17 semifinals take place tomorrow, with Swallows up against ACFA II at 15h00 and the Birds up against ACFA I at 17h00, while the final takes place at 12h00 on Saturday.
The Girls u17 final between the Physically Active Youth team and Orange Babies takes place at 16h00 tomorrow.
At a press conference yesterday, the organiser of the league Andrei Tirtirau said some exciting matches were lying in store.
“We’ve had some very good, competitive matches in all the leagues so far – the quality has been great, there’s been some upsets, and we’ve even had some teams from Swakopmund competing, and I’m sure we will be in for a treat this weekend. So I’d like to call on members of the public to come and watch the finals, I’m sure it will be very exciting,” he said.
“We started with 120 players 18 months ago but now we have about 360 players, so the growth has been fantastic – it shows there is a need for futsal in Namibia,” he added.
According to Tirtirau, plans are afoot to expand the league this year.
“We plan to hold a winter league from March to July and a summer league from August to November, while we will also hold a few smaller tournaments throughout the country, to take futsal to the regions and to do a bit of scouting,” he said.
“The top eight teams of the men’s league will qualify for the premier league next season, and the goal is to eventually have 16 teams in the premier league and 16 in the first division with promotion-relegation matches for both, as well as a social league,” he added.
Tirtirau said he was positive that Express Credit would renew their sponsorship.
“Our contract with Express Credit was for this league which is now coming to an end, but we are negotiating for the 2022 season for both the winter and summer leagues and so far it’s looking very positive. Express Credit have been very supportive so far and they want to take a long walk with us,” he said.
Tirtirau said they had big plans to develop the sport.
“First of all we want to develop and improve the skills levels, and then we want to develop the referees – we will hold referees clinics with the current Fifa approved referees who have worked very hard to get to the stage where they are at,” he said.
“We are planning to bring in international coaches, to come to Namibia and hold some coaching clinics, while we are also in touch with a few international entities, from Brazil to Europe and South Africa, in order to really just bring more exposure to the local talent,” he added.
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