Mission
Help more people discover, understand, and play futsal.
AFF creates and supports practical ways for young people to encounter the game, return to it, and make it part of their school or community.
About the American Futsal Foundation
Rooted in the game.Built for what comes next.
AFF is a nonprofit working to help more children, schools, and communities discover, understand, and play futsal—beginning in Orlando and building a model others can use.
501(c)(3) nonprofit Orlando, Florida Youth access Schools and communities
Why AFF exists
A small court can open a much larger opportunity.
Futsal fits inside the public and community spaces people already know. But a playable space alone does not guarantee access. Children also need the right introduction, age-appropriate equipment, prepared leaders, recurring play, and a cost families can manage.
Vision
Make futsal a lasting part of American youth life.
We envision schools and communities connected by places to play, local leaders, shared knowledge, and opportunities that can grow with children.
Founding roots
Futsal was born from a need.
The game began in Montevideo in 1930, when Juan Carlos Ceriani developed a five-a-side game for the courts and gymnasiums available to young people. It spread quickly across South America and found a defining home in Brazil’s futebol de salão halls.
Futsal did not begin with a purpose-built complex. It grew because people had a ball, a smaller space, and a reason to create a game that fit. The limits of the hall became part of its character: close control, quick thought, shared responsibility, and constant invention.
In the decades that followed, Brazilian players, teachers, and coaches helped shape the game into a distinct sporting culture. Among them was Mestre Zego, whose ideas about movement, creativity, and responsibility influenced generations of players and coaches around the world.
“Futsal was born out of a need. We didn’t have a place to play, so we created a way to play in a smaller space.”
AFF carries that history forward: begin with the space people have, protect the qualities that make the game special, and create a way for more children to enter it.
A living connection to the game
Mestre Zego helps keep AFF connected to futsal’s deepest ideas.
Zego is an AFF board member, Brazilian futsal legend, pioneering tactician, and teacher whose influence extends across elite futsal, coach education, and youth development.
His place in AFF is not ceremonial. His insistence that adults must “take care of the youth game” helps shape how we think about teaching, age-specific laws, creativity, leadership, and the responsibility to serve the child before the system.
Read Zego’s Story“We must take care of the youth game.”
From Zego’s teaching to Orlando
Flavio Do Amaral brought the philosophy home.
Flavio’s connection to Zego is both personal and enduring. As his mentor, Zego helped shape the way Flavio understands, teaches, and shares the game. Flavio has carried that philosophy throughout an accomplished international career and into his work with players and coaches in the Orlando community.
As a player, he competed in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, earning championships and promotions along the way. As a coach, his work has included senior and under-20 national-team roles in Qatar, years with Al Khor Sports Club, professional clubs in Italy, and youth development across several countries.
His connection to Zego is both personal and technical. During his top-level Italian coaching studies at Coverciano, Flavio wrote his monograph on Il Quattro Zero o Sistema Zego—the 4–0 system associated with his mentor’s influence on modern futsal.
In 2019, Flavio founded D.A. Futsal Academy in Orlando. Through his academy work and service on AFF’s board, he helps translate a lifetime inside the game into practical opportunities for local children, coaches, and families.
4 countriesProfessional playing experience
Italy + QatarProfessional and national-team coaching
Since 2019Building youth futsal in Orlando
Our model
A court is the beginning, not the outcome.
AFF does not view a court, club, clinic, or tournament as the final result. Each is one part of a system designed to make regular participation easier to begin, sustain, and repeat.
Space
Use the gyms and hard courts communities already have.
Game
Introduce an accessible sport built for those spaces.
People
Prepare local adults to lead with care and confidence.
Continuity
Create recurring places children can return to.
Connection
Link local programs through shared play and opportunity.
One strong location can create a place to play. Connected locations can create shared play, festivals, leagues, tournaments, and a pathway that is larger than any one program.
See how AFF approaches impactWhat guides the work
The way we build matters.
AFF’s principles connect the history of the game to the practical choices required to build access today.
Protect the youth game
Programs, equipment, laws, and instruction should serve how children actually learn and develop—not ask children to fit an adult version of sport.
Play free
Children need freedom to think, create, make mistakes, and solve the game. Families also need a path into sport that is not closed by cost.
Build from what exists
The access problem does not always require new construction. A familiar gym, the right equipment, prepared leadership, and a reliable calendar can create a real place to play.
Learn before scaling
AFF begins locally, measures what happens, improves the model, and documents what another community would need to adapt it responsibly.
Orlando beginnings. National ambition.
Start close enough to learn. Build carefully enough to travel.
Orlando is AFF’s starting point: a place to build partnerships with schools and communities, observe what children and leaders need, measure participation, and improve the model through real use.
The long-term ambition is broader. AFF wants to make it easier for other American communities to create their own durable futsal systems without losing the game’s character or the lessons learned locally.
Stewardship
A nonprofit accountable to the mission.
The American Futsal Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization governed by its board and strengthened by educators, coaches, families, donors, businesses, and community partners who share responsibility for creating lasting access.
AFF’s role is to connect those contributions around a clear public purpose: more children playing, more existing spaces put to use, more local adults prepared to lead, and more communities capable of sustaining the game.
Become part of the next chapter
The game grew because people made room for it.
A school can open a gym. A leader can open the game. A supporter can remove the first barrier. AFF can help connect the pieces.
Futsal is the Solution.