WORLD SHOWBALL ASSOCIATION

ABOUT

Showball is a football-based game played on a hardcourt like a basketball court, smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and indoor football.

Showball is played between two teams of either three, four, five and six players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper. The objective is to score as many goals as possible and the team with most goals wins. Unlimited substitutions are permitted with no roling substitutions. Unlike some other forms of indoor football, it is played on a hard court surface marked by lines; walls or boards are not used. It is played with a smaller, harder, lower-bounce ball than association football. The surface, ball and rules favour ball control and passing in small spaces resulting in high scoring matches. The game emphasizes control, improvisation, creativity and technique.

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ORIGINS
Showball started with Futsal in 1930 when Juan Carlos Ceriani, a teacher in Montevideo, Uruguay, created a version of indoor football for YMCAs.

Originally developed for basketball courts, a rule book for the new sport was published in September 1933. Association football was already highly popular in the country, and after Uruguay won the 1930 World Cup and gold medals in the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics, it attracted even more practitioners. Ceriani's goal was to create a team game similar to football that could be played indoors or outdoors.

While writing the rule book, Ceriani combined the principles of association football—where the ball may be touched with every part of the body except the hands—with rules from other sports: from basketball, the number of players (five per team) and the game's duration (40 active minutes); from water polo, the goalkeeping rules; and from team handball, the field and goal sizes. In the same year, the new variants including 4x4, 6x6 and 7x7 were created and International Showball Federation (ISF) was formed.

The ISF spread the game quickly throughout the world as it was easily played by everyone, everywhere, and in any weather condition, helping players of other sports stay in shape all year round. Today, people play it in schools, colleges and corporates and call it as Football but it is actually Showball.

In 1959, first ISF Showball World Cup consisting of 16 teams was organized and was won by Uruguay. After the world cup, many more nations joined. ISF consisted of 87 member nations. In 2020, after the covid-19 crisis, International Showball Federation was dissolved and World Showball Association replaced it.

SHOWBALL TODAY
Today, Showball is a very popular global sport, with one source estimating 150 million players across the world at professional, amateur and youth level. Due to its easy setup, enhanced accessibility, and lower physical requirements, Showball has become an essential resource for coaches aiming to develop players.

GOVERNING BODY
WSA (World Showball Association) is the successor organization to the original governing body ISF.

WSA sees itself as ancillary rather than competing with FIFA and AMF. Its membership spans countries from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Several domestic tournaments for both men and women have been organized under the auspices of WSA and is planning to organize first Showball World Cup in India in 2025.