Mumbai: Premier Futsal Management announced the second season of World’s first Multi-National Futsal League. The second season of Premier Futsal will be played in the first quarter of 2017 with eight franchises and across four cities. The Premier Futsal Management made their intentions to host the league Bi-Annually from 2017 onwards.
Season One of Premier Futsal saw Former World Player of the Year, Ronaldinho, Manchester United Stalwarts – Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, Ex-Chelsea & Inter-Milan forward Hernan Crespo, Former Galactico Michel Salgado, and ‘Pele of Futsal’, Alessandro Rosa Viera, Falcao as marquee players for the six franchises.
Premier Futsal Chairman, Xavier Britto said, “We managed to get the biggest marquee players to our country for Premier Futsal and the fans in the stadium and those watching it on TV thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We are confident about what we are doing and therefore have decided to make Premier Futsal a Bi-Annual property. Riding on the success of Season One, we will go back to our plan of playing with 8 franchises and all the International Futsallers will go under the hammer for Season Two. We will be announcing the processes and auction dates over the course of the next one month. We are humbled and thank the Indian government’s support for allowing Premier Futsal to introduce a new sport to the country and with their support, we wish to grow Futsal from strength to strength here.”
The inaugural edition of Premier Futsal was seen by over 50 million television viewers and was consumed by over 700 million people across almost 100 countries. Premier Futsal was also the first Indian sports league to stream all matches on Facebook LIVE.
Managing Director and Co-Founder, Dinesh Raj said, “The first season was all about putting out a proof of concept. Like every league, we also faced several obstacles and criticism, but the success of Season One is for everyone to see. We already managed to reach out to over 700 million people across 100 countries and we intend to tap at least 4 more regions internationally with Season two. We have several inquiries from International brands willing to partner with us and we are in an advanced stage of discussion with them. Given the response for Season One, in India and overseas, several brands have reached out to us already and have met our expectations. We are confident of announcing our title sponsor over the course of next few weeks. Launchpad, our talenthunt program will stretch for 45 days and scout for talent from the 8 franchise markets. We will be back, Bigger and Better for Season Two of Premier Futsal.”
Co-Founder and CEO, Abhinandan Balasubramanian said, “We set out with a mission to give India a new fast paced sport and with the first season of Premier Futsal, I think we are on the right track. The stadium attendance and Social Media reports suggest 35-40% of the audience were women. We have started work towards packing Premier Futsal as a sport for family audience. On an average, over 5 goals were scored every game and then obviously the finals also lived up to its expectations by going right down the wire and in to penalties. Of course, Ronaldinho’s fifer was a testament of his class and the also the format of Futsal. This season, we will be making a few changes to the rules to make the game even faster. We are already in talks with multiple international Futsal Federations and several Futsal Clubs to reach out to a wider audience globally and consolidate our position as market leaders.”
Premier Futsal, a private Futsal league promoted by Mr. Xavier Britto of Indev Group, brought the legends of football and top international Futsal players together for the first time in a unique and pioneering model. The second edition of the league will see 8 franchises divided in two groups to battle it across 4 venues to make it to the finals. The two new franchises will be assigned marquee international football players, six international and five Indian Futsallers each.
Sony Pictures Networks, who acquired the broadcast rights for the league, will continue to LIVE telecast the matches on Sony SIX, SONY ESPN and Sony AATH. Matches will also be available to live stream on SonyLIV. Premier Futsal is also in talks with international partners to ensure they reach out to a wider audience across more countries
