Thanks to the strong partnership between the Malta FA’s Grassroots, Youth Development and Education section within the Technical Centre, the Sports Promotion Unit within SportMalta and the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education (DQSE), the annual Futsal Festival is running for its eight consecutive year.

This much-awaited fun festival is held annually for schools in Malta and Gozo.

Its popularity among youngsters has grown over the past years as underlined by the participation of hundreds of school children, boys and girls.

The success of previous annual school futsal festivals was in evidence as phase two of this year’s event kicked off on January 11 at the SportMalta Complex in Cottonera.

This annual tournament features about 1,600 children representing 60 schools from different parts of the island.

After the first phase, where teachers selected the team to represent each school, the second stage sees schools within the same college playing against each other.

The PE teachers are now selecting the elite boys and girls from among the teams who took part in this penultimate phase to represent the college team in the final stage.

The referees are also committed to educating the youngsters on the rules of the game and imbue in them a sense of fair play. The opening stages of the festival saw the introduction of female futsal referee Dora Jakab who formed part of the sound match officials team.

MFA technical staff are present throughout the festival to assess the potential of several young participants, the association’s technical centre said in a statement.

The organisers thanked sponsors TeamSport and GSD Marketing for their assistance.