Bubble football is the biggest fad in the international sporting world right now, and for all the right reaons.
Yes, it’s a real sport, and it’s played all over the world, in countries like Italy, Australia, Germany, United States and, surprisingly, India.
The sport is a lot like real-world five-a-side football, which is sometimes called futsal. Two teams of five people each try to score goals.
The only difference is that in bubble football, they do all of this wearing inflatable Zorb-like plastic bubbles. This inevitably leads to a lot of rolling on the ground upside-down, with their legs swinging in the air.
Bubble football was actually invented as a joke in 2011, in Norway, by Henrik Elvestad and Johan Golden for a Norwegian Television show, Golden Goal. A video from a bubble football operator in Italy, in 2014, was what really caused the world-wide explosion of the sport.
Now, there is even an International Bubble Football Association (IBFA), of which India is a member, whose goal is to “inform people about bubble football and bring, on an international level, the bubble football fans together.”
Bubble football arrived in India in 2014, courtesy Convergence Events, who signed intellectual property rights with IBFA, and has been thriving since.
The Goregaon-based owner of Bubble Soccer India, Kamlesh Sharma, told The Hindustan Times, “We want to organise a National Bubble Soccer Championship by 2017-end and have India participate in the inaugural Bubble Soccer World Cup, which will be held in January 2018 between about 28 countries.”
If you watch the video (above), you’ll realise this whacky sport is just as much fun to play as it is to watch.
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