Futsal rules
1. Tournament’s rules
At the Donosti Cup International Football Tournament teams from federated clubs, football schools legally constituted and schools playing in their country leagues can participate. The tournament will be played in accordance with FIFA and SPANISH FOOTBALL FEDERATION rules (F.E.F.).
2. Competition system
Groups of 4 or 5 teams will play a one round league. These matches can be played in three or four days. In groups of five teams, two matches can be played in the same day according to schedule needs. The best two teams of each group will go into the Champion league. The third and the fourth ones will play the Play Off B series. The fifth one will be automatically eliminated.
Scoring system
- Won matches: 3 points.
- Tied matches: 1 points.
- Lost matches: 0 points.
Length of the matches
- 2 x 25 min.
Length of half-times
- 4 min. In all the half-times the teams will be asked to stay on the field.
3. Categories
Boys
FS-B19 Boys born after 1-1-02
FS-B16 Boys born after 1-1-05
FS-B14 Boys born after 1-1-07
FS-B12 Boys born after 1-1-09
Girls
FS-G19 Girls born alter 1-1-02
FS-G16 Girls born alter 1-1-05
FS-G14 Girls born alter 1-1-07
FS-G12 Girls born alter 1-1-09
Age control
All the players of the tournament will be identified with a colour bracelet, which will certify their birth year, before the beginning of the competition.
It will be compulsory to wear this bracelet to play the games. All the bracelets of the participants will be verified before the beginning of each game.
4.- Special permits
It is allowed that one player who plays in the tournament plays in two different teams of the same club. The teams have to be from different categories and the player must be registered as explained in the 12th article.
A player cannot play in two or more teams of the same category, even if the categories belong to the same club.
In the categories FS-B19 and FS-G19 older players will not be able to play.
In the categories FS-B16, FS-B14, FS-G16 and FS-G14 a maximum of 2 one year older players can play.
In FS-B12 and FS-G12 categories, older players will not be able to play.
In FS-B12 category girls or mixed teams will be able to play if they fulfil the ages of their category.
In all of the girls’ categories boys will not be allowed to play. In the FS-B14 category, it will be possible to have a maximum of 2 girls per team.
5.- Qualifying standards
1st round (league)
If two or more teams have the same number of points, the rules to decide the winner will be as follows:
- 1.- Difference of goals in favour or against taking into account all matches (General goal averages).
- 2.- Highest number of scored goals taking into account all matches.
- 3.- Results of matches among teams with the same amount of points (Individual goal average)
- 4.- Fair play. Less points in the disciplinary punishment (11th article)
- 5.- Computer toss
2nd round (Qualifying round)
Draws in the play-off will be decided by penalty kicks, without extra time, following the FIFA rules.
6.- Number of Players and Substitutes
A team can register a maximum of 15 players and a maximum of 3 staff members on every match. Substitutions can be rotatives, which means that a player can get back in the field after being substituted. The substitutions must be made in three times maximum per team apart from in the halftime, and the moment when the opposing team asks for its substitutions can also be used. In any situation, a team can have an extra moment for an additional substitution, for the fact of for example, of having an injured player if the three substitution times have been already used. All the substitutions must be made from the centre of the field, requesting authorization to the referee and when the game is stopped.
7.- Minutes
All minutes of the tournament will be on the computer (on-line). For this purpose, the delegates of the teams must provide to the members of the organization in the field, the OFFICIAL ROSTER OF DONOSTI CUP with the corresponding t-shirt number of each player half an hour before the match. It will be mandatory to know before the match the players and the coaches that will be on the field. It will be also advisable to the responsible of the teams, to check the result and the cards with the field staff.
8.- Clothing
All shirts will be numbered and must correspond to the ones in players' list. Numbers must be on the back of the shirts. In case of similarity of t-shirts, visitor players should change their shirt. (The visitor team is the one appearing last in the program). The colours of the teams can be checked on the website. If the coincidence of colours persisted, the organisation will give bibs of a different colour. The visitor team should wear the bibs.
9.- Football fields
All games will be played in indoor facilities.
10.- Punctuality
Match timetables will be strictly respected. Teams must be ready 15 min before the kick-off of the game. If this does not happen and the organisation understood that there is no reason that justifies that failure to appear, the game may be declared lost to the offending team by 3 – 0. The decision will be always taken by the Competition Comitee. The half-times of 11-a-side games as well as those of 8-a-side will last 4 minutes. All the half-times will have to be at the football fields.
5 minutes before the start of each game, both teams will be ready in the access tunnel of the field to go together with the referee to the game. At the referee's signal the teams will come in two rows behind him and before the field toss, two rows will be made looking to the stands and teams will do a sports greet.
11.-Penalties-disciplinary rules
Any player sent off with a direct red card will be suspended for one or more matches or sent off for the rest of the competition (depending on the seriousness of the suspension). Any player accumulating 3 warnings (yellow cards) during the tournament will be suspended for the next match. The cards will be accumulated throughout the whole tournament and will not be cleared for the next round of the tournament. Only if the player gets to the Champions league or the Play Off B final, the accumulated cards will be pardoned, except for those players who got a red card that will keep the suspension even at the finals.
The player having a suspension of one or more games will not be able to play any game in any category until fulfilling the suspension in the category where he is registered. Even if the disciplinary foul cause of the sanction occurs in a game of a different category to the one where the player is registered.
If a team had 3 players or less, the match would be abandoned and the result will be decided by the committee of competition of the tournament.
Fair play
In case of draw and as the 4th criteria to be classified, the accumulation of cards will have a negative value to be classified (Fair Play), having the value of 1 point per yellow card, 2 points per double yellow card and 3 points per direct red card. The addition of these points will be made only and exclusively by the sanction reports of the organisation. This classification will be on the website of the tournament.
Any team showing bad behaviour during the competition (wrong protests to referees’ decisions, arguments with other teams responsible and the staff of the tournament specially, etc) could be automatically sent off. All the serious expulsions will be reported to the National Federation of the country of the affected player.
In the case of a violent attitude of players belonging to the Guipuzkoa federation, these situations will be reported to the federation giving names and family names of the players involved. This federation could put any penalty.
Delegates are responsible of their player’s behaviour and attitude towards referees, team partners, opponents, spectators, organization and the facilities where matches will be played (changing rooms, benches, paying grounds…)
The organization will check the changing rooms with both team delegates before and after each match. The delegate will have to sign that in case of any damages in the benches, changing rooms or field; the player, delegate or team producing any of these damages will be the responsible of those.
The teams that demonstrate a passive attitude in the matches and are left to lose one or more matches to classify in the PLAY OFF B will be expelled from the tournament.
12.- Registration of players and technical staff
Players of the same club playing in different categories
Each player, even if he/she is playing in more than one category, he/she has to be registered only in one of them, always fulfilling the age requirements of the article 3 for that category.
To play in a second team (always from the same club) the coach will have to show the “List of players” where this player has to be registered before the beginning of the match –and following the instructions of the article n. 7 of the rules- and enter the player at the match official form.
At any moment, a player can play in another team of the same club and of the same category where he/she is registered.
13.- Referees
All tournament matches will be leaded by official referees from "Colegio Gipuzkoano de Árbitros". The referee and the staff will be the highest authority in the field and both will be able to stop or suspend the match if they detect any non-sportive attitude in one or both teams or wrong behaviour or attitude in the public that may interfere in the correct development of the game and of the tournament. Not only the final result of the game, but also the disciplinary resolution of the facts will be a task of the Competition Committee.
14.- Protests
All protests must be given to the staff in the field written by the team manager not later than 60 minutes after the match is finished. Any protest will not be taken after that period of time. A protest fee of 50 Euros will be paid at that time moment when it is given to the staff in the field. This fee will be refunded if the protest is approved. All the protests will be determined by the Competition Committe and the resolution will be translated to the responsible of the involved teams by the Sports Direction of the tournament. The tournament committee will not consider protests regarding decisions taken by the referees.
15.- Competition committee
The competition committee is an independent establishment to the Sport Direction of the Tournament. They discuss about all the important things happened during the day, adopting the necessary disciplinary decisions. All the decisions will be published on the website of the Tournament. The most serious or urgent penalties may be announced to the responsible of the concerned teams by the Sports Direction of the Tournament. The decisions cannot be appealed, all participants must accept them.
16.- Playing program
The organising committee hast the right to change the groups, times and fields. This information will be given to all the team delegates. All these changes will be on the website and this will be the official way the organization will use to inform the teams.
17.- Balls
All matches are played using futsal balls. The organisation won't leave balls for trainings before the matches, so each team must bring their own balls for their warm-up exercises.
18.- Insurances
The organisation has a private insurance, which covers all the injuries that may happen in the football fields and the sanitary attention will be at “Policlinica Guipuzcoa”. The sanitary transfers will be made by a private ambulance company.
