Abstract:

The practice of competitive futsal takes children to participate in exhaustive trainings that demanda lot oftheir physical and psychological capacity. As its consequence, many children leave the sport(dropout). This study aimed toidentify the level of abandonment of children who practice futsal over aperiod.The studywas characterized as documentary, with longitudinal analysis. The participants were 65 athletes from four different futsal schools from northeastern Rio Grande do Sul, participants of the Nordestão Cup between 2006 and 2011and who attended the inclusion criteria. The Nordestão Cupis characterized by being traditional futsal competition that involves futsal schools and teams of the city and region, every year. Were analyzed games dockets and records of athletes from the futsal schools that participated through out the studied period. The results showed that the overall dropout ratein the investigated period was 65.14%. The abandonment is higher in the ‘initiation’ category, with 32% over the period studied. One of the surveyed futsal schools has the highest dropout rate, with 78.57% due the fact of being located in a city where there are no other futsal schools. The level of temporary absence of sports and the level of migration of athletes among futsal schools showed values of 12.51% and12.46%, respectively. It was concluded that there is ahigh rate of abandonment in the practice of competitive futsal in the initial categories, indicating to a question aboutthe forms of competition, the methods and goals of schools of futsal in the region. More qualitative studies are suggested to ascerta in the causes of the high dropout rates in sport

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