How do you organize a futsal tournament?

More than the 40 minutes on the team sheet. Law 7.1 sets two periods of 20 minutes of playing time, and FIFA defines playing time as the time the ball is in play: the timekeeper stops the clock every time it goes out. The interval may last up to 15 minutes (Law 7.4), and each team may call a one-minute timeout in each period (Law 7.3). Add those up and a full-length match already needs 40 + 15 + 4 = 59 minutes before a single kick-in or goal stops the clock.

Law 7.1 lets competition rules shorten the periods, and most club and school tournaments do. Some regional rules also drop the stopped clock: the SWFV rules for indoor tournaments allow a running clock, and with shortened running time there are no timeouts.

Run the numbers for your day before you print the schedule. Twelve clubs in four groups of three play 12 group matches, then quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place match and a final: 20 matches. On one court with 2 x 10 minutes of running time, a 2-minute interval and 3 minutes to change over, each slot is 25 minutes and the day lasts 500 minutes, or 8 hours 20 minutes. One period of 15 minutes plus the changeover gives 18-minute slots and 6 hours in total.

JudgeMate proposes a slot as long as the playing time alone: 40 minutes for 2 x 20, 20 minutes for 2 x 10. Lengthen it to your real slot before you run the auto-schedule, or the matches will pile up behind each other from the first hour.

Law 6 provides for up to three assistant referees: a third referee, a fourth referee and a timekeeper. The third referee and the timekeeper sit at the table. The timekeeper runs the chronometer and gives the mandatory signal when a team has committed five accumulated fouls in a period, because from the sixth one the opponents take a direct free kick without a wall, from the 10 m mark or from where the foul happened (Law 13.5). A sixth foul inside the penalty area is a penalty kick instead.

At a club or school tournament nobody has a third referee. The SWFV rules say what happens then: the tournament management may take over the counting of fouls, the timeouts and the 2-minute time after a sending-off. In practice that person is whoever runs the scoreboard.

The JudgeMate futsal scoreboard does that bookkeeping. It counts accumulated fouls per half and warns after the fifth that the next foul means a 10 m free kick. Fouls from the second half carry into extra time, as Law 13.4 says. It allows one team timeout per half and none in extra time, and a red card starts the 2-minute short-handed time, which ends early if the team concedes a goal.

Law 3 allows up to five players on the pitch, one of them the goalkeeper, and up to nine substitutes in an official competition. Substitutions are unlimited and players may come back on. That gives a squad of 14, and a JudgeMate futsal club takes up to 14 players.

Regional tournament rules are often stricter. The SWFV caps the tournament team sheet at 12 players, with no more than seven substitutes. Put your number in the invitation so clubs do not arrive with 16.

Each side of the draw is a club entered by name, and the players need no accounts. Decide who fills in the squads. You can type them yourself, let each team manager enter the club through the event link, or let the players sign up. The futsal tutorial film shows the team-manager route: the manager adds the club name and squad, and you approve each team separately.

UEFA plays the early rounds of the Futsal Champions League as mini-tournaments of three or four teams at one host venue, with 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and none for a defeat (2026/27 regulations, article 14). The model works for a hall day too: short groups, every club plays two or three matches, then a knockout.

In JudgeMate pick groups + knockout with 1 to 4 groups and 1, 2, 4 or 8 teams going through from each group, or a plain round robin if you have five or six clubs. A new futsal draw counts 3-1-0. There is no futsal federation standings preset in JudgeMate, the same as for football, so the table uses the default order below.

UEFA article 15.01 ranks teams level on points by:

1. points in the matches between them,
2. goal difference in those matches,
3. goals scored in those matches,
4. the same three steps again for any teams still level,
5. goal difference in all group matches,
6. goals scored in all group matches,
7. then fair-play points and the club coefficient.

The JudgeMate table follows steps 1 to 6. It does not count fair-play points or coefficients, so when nothing separates two clubs it marks the tie and you set the order. Write your own last step into the rules, for example a shoot-out or a drawing of lots.

Law 10.2 offers three tools and lets you combine them: the away-goals rule, extra time of two periods of no more than 5 minutes each, and kicks from the penalty mark. In the shoot-out both teams take five kicks, and if they are still level the kicks continue until one team leads after the same number (Law 10.3).

UEFA uses them by round. Semi-finals and the final go to 2 x 5 minutes of extra time and then penalties. The third-place match skips extra time and goes straight to kicks (article 20.03). Copy that for your placement matches and you save ten minutes of playing time each.

A cup spread over several weekends can play home and away. JudgeMate offers two legs when the whole draw is a knockout: the aggregate decides, a level aggregate goes to a shoot-out after the second leg, and the final and the third-place match stay single matches. Away goals do not count in JudgeMate, even though Law 10.2 allows them. If your rules keep away goals, settle those ties by hand.

When you enter a level knockout result yourself, JudgeMate asks for the shoot-out score before it accepts the match.

Regional associations rewrite the foul threshold for short matches. Two German examples:

• SWFV (as of 26 November 2025): with 11 to 15 minutes of running time, the first three accumulated fouls draw a free kick with a wall, and the fourth brings the 10 m kick. With 10 minutes or less, the third foul does. With 16 to 20 minutes, the fifth.
• FV Rheinland youth rules (2024-25): fouls are counted per match, with the 10 m kick from the third foul below 10 minutes of playing time, from the fourth at 10 to 15 minutes and from the fifth at 16 to 20.

In JudgeMate you set the period length and the number of periods (1 to 4) for the whole draw and can change them for a single match, for example a longer final. The foul threshold is fixed at the FIFA value: the warning comes after the fifth foul and the 10 m kick starts with the sixth. If your rules use the third or fourth foul, the referee applies that threshold from the count on the board. The board still counts every foul; its warning just comes later than your rule asks for.

Fouls on the board reset each half. For a per-match count like FV Rheinland's, play one period, and the half and the match become the same thing.

Start every match from the draw with Start the scoreboard. The board runs the countdown clock, goals, cards, accumulated fouls and timeouts, and the bracket and table show the match as live.

A match gets its own referee QR code once its scoreboard is started. It is in the match panel and on the printable sheet of referee QR codes. A referee who scans it keeps the score and the clock on that match's board. When the board finishes, the match counts as ended, and the result reaches the table and the bracket only after you confirm it. That is one tap on Confirm from board.

By default you enter and confirm results. In the draw settings you can let team managers or players report the score of a group or round-robin match, with the other side confirming it. Knockout, consolation and third-place matches are always confirmed by you. In the leagues module only you and your co-organizers enter results.

Put the bracket on a TV in the hall with the big-screen view, and share the event link so parents follow the table on their phones.

A club that does not turn up loses by walkover. JudgeMate enters 5-0 for futsal by default, and you can set any score from 1 to 99 in the draw settings. That number is a JudgeMate setting. The Laws of the Game do not fix one, and the UEFA regulations leave forfeits to its disciplinary bodies, so print your figure in the rules.

1. Open Create with futsal selected and name the event. A futsal category is created with it, set by default to a knockout bracket with a third-place match.
2. Change the format to groups + knockout or round robin if you want groups, and set the period length and the number of periods.
3. Choose who enters the clubs, switch the event to public and send the link to team managers. Approve each team.
4. Run the draw.
5. Add the hall as a resource, set the start time and a slot long enough for your real match, then run the auto-schedule. Print the match slips and the bracket.
6. On the day, start each match on the scoreboard, give the referee that board's QR code, confirm each result and show the bracket on the big screen.

The whole route takes a few minutes in the futsal tutorial film. What JudgeMate does not do: change the accumulated-foul threshold, apply away goals, count fair-play points, produce an official PZPN or DFB match report, or take entry fees. For the playing rules, see how futsal scoring works and the futsal referee guide.