Russian Football Union
Tuesday 1 July 2008
e-mail
Print
Digg
Save
Russia fans have enjoyed success in both football and futsal under the RFS (©Getty Images)
The Russian Football Union (RFS) is the successor to the All-Russia Football Union (VFS), founded in 6 January 1912 in St Petersburg, venue for the UEFA European Under-21 Futsal Tournament.
New body
Six months later the VFS joined FIFA, entered the 1912 Olympic Games and later set up a national league. War and revolution interrupted Russian football until the 1930s, and from 1959 the Football Federation of the USSR was set up as a body throughout the Soviet Union. In 1992, when the USSR dissolved, the RFS was set up to run football in the Russian Federation, and the independent nation has qualified for the 1996, 2004 and 2008 UEFA European Championship final tournaments and the 2002 FIFA World Cup, as well as winning the 2005 UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship and 2006 UEFA European U17 Championship.
Russian futsal
Futsal developed early in Russia as a form of indoor mini-football had long been a winter staple in the Soviet Union and from the start they have been a major force in the game. Russia won bronze at the third FIFA Futsal World Cup in 1996, also reaching the final of the first European futsal tournament run by UEFA. Three years later Russia were the inaugural winners of the UEFA European Futsal Championship, before hosting the event in Moscow in 2001. In 2007 MFK Dinamo Moskva won the UEFA Futsal Cup after their third consecutive final appearance, and staged the 2008 event this April, when MFK Viz-Sinara Ekaterinburg kept the trophy in Russia. Now St Petersburg will host the first U21 finals.
©uefa.com 1998-2008. All rights reserved.
