Allie Logday (pictured), president of the Futsal Association of Cape Town (FACT), has already put his money where his mouth is regarding the growth and awareness of this so-called “Cinderella” sporting code and format of football.
Logday, who barely had weeks in his new position, kicked off his tenure, by managing to chair the 2025/2026 SAIFA Cape Town regional men’s senior league edition one, to completion and now as boss of Futsal in the Mother City, took futsal into the Cape Flats communities, with various activations in areas such as Clarke Estate (Elsies River), Athlone and Mitchells Plain – already signalling his intent to grow the game and ensure it has more credibility in the mainstream industry as well.
“It’s all about creating awareness and generating interest in our local communities and exposing the youth to futsal,” Logday explained to No Bones with Jones. “And when you go into these communities and you start educating them from five, six, seven, eight years and upwards, you are doing your part to better the sport overall and holistically, you know.
“One of the things I’ve seen too many times and I mentioned it to you already, is that too many times people from outdoor football are converted into futsal players. Now, I say take futsal into the community as you already creating awareness and planting the seed as to what futsal is all about and allowing the kids to play and to express themselves in that format as well,” Logday added.
Logday, a former national futsal goalie, has already engaged and mobilized several schools as part of the broader introduction to the sport and has also been reminded that he’ll have to overcome various challenges in order to achieve his objectives.
He further explained: “Typically, schools focus on team sporting codes like outdoor football, rugby, hockey and cricket. For futsal to have a space in the school programme can’t be too hard if a defined time frame is given within the school year. Ultimately, the way in which it is viewed and introduced is that sports heads at schools shouldn’t see futsal as a threat to existing codes.
“I say this because futsal is a shorter format of football and requires less time to start and conclude a match. It works, because maybe a school learner, who plays rugby or hockey, wants to play football, but time constraints doesn’t allow for it to be played, but with the shorter format, perhaps now it can be fitted into their sporting schedule.
“Additionally, futsal has proven to be one of, if not the best, football development tool. A perfect example of this is an u.17 boy I witnessed shining for the Pinelands High School football team in the Wynberg Boys Freedom cup tournament. This very boy is one who started playing futsal consistently from 8-years old.” said Logday
“The bi-product of these initiatives is hopefully the City (of Cape Town) can see we need more venues for futsal to grow because venues are also a serious stumbling block. I think they should either take existing venues and convert them (into futsal spaces) or they should start from scratch so that we have more indoor sports halls to cater for the growing need of indoor sports such as futsal, basketball, volleyball, indoor hockey, etc.
“Like the mayor went around from swimming pool to swimming pool, which is nice, but we still don’t have facilities for all our sporting codes. But look, the activations will continue to happen to educate the people around the sport in the communities, especially if they have a flat hard surface and space to play on” Logday concluded.
