About blind football

Football is the most popular sport in the world played by people disregarding their age, sex, race or religion. No wonder the visually impaired play football, too. The aim of this web page is to introduce you to the sport called blind football. This web page will also give you some information about this sport.

Blind football is a Paralympic sport which follows the rules according to the International Blind Sport Federation (IBSA) based on the standard futsal.

Ball and active players

Blind football is played by two teams of four players in the field and a goalkeeper. A team's aim is to score more goals than the other team. The ball, unlike the standard football, contains a sound system inside so it is audible when it is moving.

The goalkeeper is the only member of the team who can use the sight, all other players are blind. To secure equal conditions, all field players must wear eye shades. The role of the sighted goalkeeper differs from that of the other players as he or she is limited in movement to the goalkeeper's area (an area of 2 by 5 meters in front of the goal). The goalkeeper's role is to prevent the opponent from scoring a goal as well as to navigate the team players and to provide them with brief, quick and precise information that are important for their overall orientation in the game.

Passive participants in the game

There are two helpers to the goalkeeper, the coach and the navigator behind the goal. There are strictly defined roles of these three participants in which they can navigate the members of their team.

  1. The goalkeeper communicates with the team members operating in the defensive third,
  2. the coach is allowed to navigate his or her players in the midfield third and he or she usually stays in the area near the halfway line outside the pitch,
  3. The guide may operate behind the opponent's goal and he or she verbally helps the players within the attacking third.

Voy

The most important communication rule is the player's duty to say clearly and in due time the word "voy" each time he or she is moving towards the ball. The expression "voy" is a universally known expression in the world of blind football adopted from Spanish. It means, "I'm going."

Gabriel Mayr in his diploma thesis says that this rule gives the present ball holder the certainty that he or she learns in advance that an opponent is approaching. If the attacker does not say "Voy", the referee should punish the team with a foul.

Side Kickboards

The presence of side kickboards along the boundary lines of the field helps the blind players with orientation. The side kickboards help the players to be aware of their present position in the pitch. They also bring about the advantage of a more fluent game as a rebound of the ball is not classified as ball out of play.

History of blind football

Brazil and Spain are the most prominent pioneer countries of blind football, which has been an organized sport since the first half of the 20th century. The first blind football tournament took place in Brazil some fifty years later in 1974. Teams from three South American countries participated in the tournament.

Introduction of unified rules

The Brazilian Blind Sports Confederation (CBDC) then initiated a debate about the possible adaptation of conditions for football so that blind or visually impaired players could also participate in the game. As a result, official blind footsal rules were adopted in 1994. IBSA (International Blind Sports Association) then created a Futsal Subcommittee administering this sport on an international level.

The First World Championship

The First World Championship took place in 1998. The winner of the tournament which was organized in Venue, Brazil, was the domestic Brazilian team. The following World Championship was organized in Spain two years later and the Brazilians confirmed their dominant position. The third World Championship was organized in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2002. The victory of the Argentinian team followed by the Spanish team was a great surprise and the host country had to settle for the third position.

Blind football at the Paralympic

Acceptation of blind football into the 2004 Paralympic Games was the last important step in the sport's worldwide development. The tournament in Athens was won by Brazil after it defeated Argentina in the final match shootout. The following, fourth World Championship was hosted by Argentina in Buenos Aires. The home team returned to the Brazilian team the defeat at the Paralympic tournament and they defended their world primacy. Spain disrupts the hegemony of both South American countries, during the last few years also China or France as can be seen below.

Team rankings at paralympic tournaments and world championships

Paralympic games

  • 2004, Athens (Greece): 1. Brazil, 2. Argentina, 3. Spain
  • 2008, Bejing (China): 1. Brazil, 2. China, 3. Argentina
  • 2012, London (Great Britain): 1. Brazil, 2. France, 3. Spain
  • 2016, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): 1. Brazil, 2. Iran, 3. Argentina
  • 2020, Tokyo (Japan): 1. Brazil, 2. Argentina, 3. Morocco

World Championships

  • 1998, Paulinia (Brazil): 1. Brazil
  • 2000, Jerez de la Frontera (Spain): 1. Brazil
  • 2002, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): 1. Argentina, 2. Spain, 3. Brazil
  • 2006, Buenos Aires (Argentina): 1. Argentina, 2. Brazil, 3. Paraguay
  • 2010, Hereford (Great Britain): 1. Brazil, 2. Spain, 3. China
  • 2014, Tokio (Japan): 1. Brazil, 2. Argentina, 3. Spain
  • 2018, Madrid (Spain): 1. Brazil, 2. Argentina, 3. China

You can observe the statistics of paralympic tournaments and all the world and continental championships held since 2002 if you open the websites of IBSA and go to the section Sports – Football – Results.

Pictures source: IBSA Webpages.