It has been determined that the Japan Futsal National Team will be participating in the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021™ in September.

Originally, the AFC Futsal Asian Cup was supposed to serve as the qualification round to determine the AFC representatives, but the tournament was cancelled due to the spread of COVID-19. As a result, Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has made the decision to name Iran, Japan, and Uzbekistan as qualifiers, based on their track record in AFC and other international competitions, while a play-off will be held between Iraq, Lebanon, Thailand, and Vietnam to determine the last two qualifiers from AFC.

FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania was originally scheduled to take place from September to October 2020, but the competition was postponed to 2021 due to the effects of COVID-19.

FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021™

Date: 12 September – 3 October 2021
Host Cities: Kaunas, Klaipeda, Vilnius (Lithuania)
* Fifth FIFA Futsal World Cup appearance for Japan Futsal National Team (1989, 2004, 2008, 2012)
* Best finish: Round of 16 at the FIFA Futsal World Cup Thailand 2012

Comment of Bruno GARCIA, Coach of Japan Futsal National Team

Today is a very delightful day for the Japanese futsal world. For the past four years, we have put in tremendous amount of work towards the FIFA Futsal World Cup, and our efforts have come to fruition. I would like to share this joy with everyone involved in the Japan Futsal National Team. We are proud to announce that the Japan Futsal National Team will be competing at the FIFA Futsal World Cup, and hopefully this news can bring joy to our fans all over the country. However, we are just getting started with this story. We will continue to give our best efforts to prepare ourselves for this historic event and strive to become the focal point of the FIFA Futsal World Cup.

Comment of KITAZAWA Tsuyoshi, Chairman of JFA Futsal Committee

With the support of our fans, supporters, the F.League, futsal federations, and everybody involved in futsal, we were able to earn our ticket to the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021™. After failing to qualify in 2016, it’s been over eight years since Japan has participated in the FIFA Futsal World Cup. Reaching the semi-finals at the World Cup remains as our goal, and we will give our utmost effort to achieve our goal so that we can raise the overall level of futsal in Japan.