Asian Premier Futsal Championship

The Asian Premier Futsal Championship is an Indian franchise-based futsal league conceptualised by Indian entrepreneurs under the entity of Pvt. Ltd. It was founded by Abhinandan Balasubramanian, Dinesh Raj and Nithyashree Subban, backed by business magnate Xavier Britto and his wife, philanthropist Vimala Britto.

Format

Each playing team consists of three international futsal players, one international marquee football player and one Indian futsal player. Every squad is allowed a maximum of twelve players.^{[citation needed]}

Premier Futsal conducted a talent hunt programme across eight cities called Launchpad to scout and select Indian players. The programme combed through 2500 participants per city to shortlist five regional players for each team.^[1] Mumbai 5's won the inaugural Premier Futsal by defeating Kochi 5's in the penalty shootout.^{[citation needed]}

Management team

• Xavier Britto - Chairman & investor of Premier Futsal, founder & chairman of Estell group of hotels & Kerry Indev Logistics^[2] & Indev Logistics^[3]
• Dinesh Raj - Managing director of Premier Futsal, Guinness World Record holder for creating the India's largest human national flag
• Abhinandan Balasubramanian - CEO of Premier Futsal, founder of AltFlo & ChefHost^[4]
• Nithyashree Subban - Director of Finance & Strategy, Premier Futsal
• Vimala Britto - Director of Premier Futsal, Correspondent - Britto Group of Colleges, founder & chairperson - Seek Foundation, a non-profit organization

Brand ambassadors

Indian cricket team batsman Virat Kohli has joined the Premier Futsal as its brand ambassador.^[5]

Premier Futsal attracted a lot of fans when they signed one of the best futsal players in the world, Alessandro Rosa Vieira, popularly known as Falcão.^[6]

On 12 May 2016, Virat Kohli along with Falcão facilitated the launch of the nationwide talent hunt to select 40 players who will represent their respective cities in the first season of Premier Futsal.^[7]

Anthem

The Premier Futsal anthem Naam Hai Futsal had its tunes set by two-time Academy Award winner A. R. Rahman with vocals also provided by Karthik, Lady Kash and Virat Kohli.

Previous teams

Team	City	Owner	Marquee	Head coach
Kolkata 5's	Kolkata, West Bengal	Grassroot Entertainment Pvt. Ltd	Hernán Crespo	Christian Roldan
Chennai Singhams	Chennai, Tamil Nadu	The Hindu	Falcão	Falcão
Bengaluru Royals	Bengaluru, Karnataka	Puneeth Rajkumar[8]	Paul Scholes	Juan Jose Bernal Cierre
Telugu Tigers	Hyderabad, Telangana	Rana Daggubati Esa Mohammed and Jonaid Bin Tajuddin Al Mohammed	Deco
Kerala Cobras	Kochi, Kerala	ES Entertainment	Míchel Salgado	Sergio Sapo
Mumbai Warriors	Mumbai, Maharashtra	DC Design	Ryan Giggs	Ney Pereira
Delhi Dragons	New Delhi		Ronaldinho
Goa's	Goa		Cafu

Results

By season

Season	Date	Winner	Score	Runners–up	Venue	Player of the tournament	Semi-finalists
2016	24 July	Mumbai	1(3)–1(2)	Kerala	Peddem Sports Complex, Mapusa, Goa	Chaguinha	Kolkata Goa
2017	1 October	Mumbai	3–2	Delhi	Al Wasl Indoor Stadium, Dubai	Ronaldinho	Telugu Tigers Bengaluru Royals

Telecast

Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd. acquired exclusive rights to broadcast Premier Futsal. As part of the agreement, all Premier Futsal matches will be televised live on Sony SIX, Sony ESPN and Sony Aath. Matches will also be available to live stream on Sony LIV.^[9]

In Indonesia, all Premier Futsal matches also broadcast live on nonton.com (2016 only)^[10] and Super Soccer TV (from 2017).^[11]

See also

• History of Indian football
• AFC Futsal Asian Cup
• FIFA Futsal World Cup
• AIFF Futsal Club Championship
• Minifootball
• Five-a-side football
• Indoor soccer

References

This page was last edited on 19 May 2024, at 01:26