East Coast Futsal Academy director Mick Day says futsal player have a lot to look forward to in the next month

Port Macquarie is expected to host the Optus Sevens 7v7 competition from September 29 and the Brisbane Roar Football Club 3v3 Junior Futsal Tournament from October 6.

The previously postponed Schools Titles competition from March is also scheduled to return in November, said Mr Day.

"Tournament wise we have some big things coming with the Optus Seven competition, a seven versus seven football festival on the synthetic fields in Port Macquarie," he said.

"There will be football clubs, social and academy teams from Manning to Grafton competing from September 29 to October 1 for that event. Very talented teams and professional coaches coming down for that.

"In the second week of the school holidays we have the Brisbane Roar three versus three futsal tournament from October 6 to 8.

"The normal junior futsal competition will also restart from term four, October 19 each Monday. That's one of the most popular competitions and closed earlier this year in March.

"The School Titles are coming back after they were initially moved from April until September and has now been postponed to November. Every single school is still on board for that.

"We're also looking at taking part in a state league here between Coffs Harbour, East Coast, Manning, Newcastle and Taree. That looks like it's going to happen in end of October to December and one of those rounds would be in Port Macquarie. It's a pretty big deal, organised through Australian Futsal Association."

READ MORE: Port Macquarie futsal club East Coast Eagles partner with Optus

Mr Day said local futsal players with aspirations for international competition have particularly suffered under the COVID-19 travel restrictions this year.

"Our goal is to get our players more internationally recognised. International play has been really hard for us this year, even our national teams are affected," he said.

"Some players are scheduled to compete in the US national and World Futsal Showcase in 2021. We have six boys aged 17 to 18 who were invited to play in Italy in April this year and we have one girl also invited to the Italian league but all are unable to go.

"It's been hard and nationally wise we can't cross the Queensland border, equally we won't go to Sydney to compete because we would have to quarantine for two weeks.

"Although there is some local and regional competition, for some of those higher national teams it has been hard.

"East Coast itself is healthy. We have received a lot of support from Port Macquarie-Hastings Council and the stadium. We run debt-free so we were able to adapt to the changes well.

"We've only been affected because we cannot get our players in Europe, which is where they need to be. Our players are competition ready but are competition poor."

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