Futsal in Pakistan: the rules, the history and the first international wins

Futsal is football's indoor cousin: smaller teams, a smaller ball and a court rather than a pitch. In Pakistan it has long been played in gymnasiums and on private courts, but only recently has it gained the structures of a serious international sport.

How futsal works

Futsal is governed by FIFA, which publishes its own Laws of the Game. The key differences from eleven-a-side football:

• Each team has five players on court, one of them a goalkeeper.
• The ball is smaller and heavier, with a deliberately low bounce, which keeps it on the floor and rewards close control.
• A match is two 20-minute halves, and the clock stops whenever the ball is dead, so games often last much longer in real time.
• Substitutions are unlimited and made on the fly.
• When the ball goes out over the touchline, play restarts with a kick-in rather than a throw-in.

The game was created in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1930. Its small spaces and constant touches make it a favourite for developing technique.

Futsal's path in Pakistan

The sport is now overseen by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), a member of the Asian Football Confederation. Before that, it was organised by an independent body set up in 2014. Pakistani club sides made headlines in international amateur five-a-side events in 2016 and 2017, and Islamabad's Liaquat Gymnasium hosted an International Futsal Cup with foreign teams in February 2018.

In 2023 the PFF launched its National Futsal Cup, a regional circuit with men's and women's events in Lahore, Quetta, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi. The planned national finals were never held, and the competition effectively ended after the Karachi phase in April 2024.

The national teams arrive

The big step came in 2025. After open trials and a camp at Liaquat Gymnasium, Pakistan named its first men's national futsal squad, coached by Sakhawat Ali, for the AFC Futsal Asian Cup qualifiers in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Drawn in a group with Iraq, the hosts and Chinese Taipei, Pakistan lost all three matches, an expected baptism against far more experienced opponents.

The breakthrough followed at the SAFF Futsal Championship in Thailand in January 2026. The men's team came from 2-0 down to beat Bhutan 4-2 for Pakistan's first international futsal win, and the women's team beat Sri Lanka 3-2, with Azwa Chaudhry scoring a hat-trick, for their own first victory. The PFF also used the event to put referees and coaches through futsal courses.

What comes next

Infrastructure remains the big challenge, and the PFF has acknowledged the shortage of proper futsal facilities. There are signs of change: in Islamabad, the Capital Development Authority has said it plans to offer sites for futsal courts, following its padel model.

For a country where young footballers often grow up playing on cramped urban spaces, futsal is a natural fit. With national teams now in place, the next task is building the leagues and courts to feed them.