It has been over 30 years since amputee football competitions were initially established. The amputee football includes amputees, deaf, blind, and other disabled people (also called people with limited abilities).

It is reported that Amputee Football was initiated in the USA and Brazil. In the last 20-30 years, physical culture and sports among amputees have come to a great attention in the whole world community. As a result, disabled people all over the world showed unbelievable achievements.

Sports, and especially football united these people and they started taking part at various meetings and sporting events, and started working cooperatively together and finding new ways of contributing to develop sports.

In the recent years, amputees of the world with various disabilities, in accordance with their abilities, have been taking successfully part in very many kinds of sports competitions, and this made them feel even much closer to each other. Among these sports is football – a game loved by millions. Amputee football is, in some ways, a different kind of football. It requires a special power and tolerance.

The most convenient way to conduct games is mini-football competitions. It’s much smaller than a usual football in size and enables to achieve more results in even a short time. This makes the game become much more dynamic, exciting and interesting.

For this purpose, in accordance with FIFA mini-football rules, there have been worked out special rules in local events, competitions for cups and international competitions for amputees.

The main goal in promoting amputee football is to spread the sport among the disabled, improve their health and become even more active. Moreover, to support amputees all over the world in participating at different level competitions and International Sports Movement.
Today, amputee football is developing in many countries worldwide. But, due to lack of organizers, unfortunately not all countries have national teams in this sport. This is preventing from holding local and friendship competitions in those countries.

Currently, countries such as England, Germany, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldavia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Brazil, Salvador, Mexico, USA, Uzbekistan, Iran, Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, Zaire take place in amputee football.

In the CIS territory, amputee football was established in the late 80s. In 1988, Bill Berry, the founder of amputee football in the US, paid a visit to Moscow. Sport officials in Moscow refused to his offer in developing amputee football in the city. Then, Berry took a trip to Tashkent, where he was warmly welcomed and made his great contribution to the development of amputee football in Uzbekistan. Unsurprisingly, Bill Berry was amazed of Uzbek warmth, friendliness, culture and traditions. Most of all, he was happy that his idea of developing amputee football was welcomed and supported in this country. That time, there were a lot of young people in the country who experienced cold war in Afghanistan. This wonderful idea made those people more than joyful and gave them an authentic spirit to engage in sports. As a result, the first Amputee Football team, so called “Matonat”, was established in Tashkent. By and by, the number of the teams was increasing all over the former USSR. There were established teams in various regions of Uzbekistan and other countries: Sogdiana (Samarqand), Kaspiy (Mahachkala), Stimul (Vladikavkaz), Promitey (Nijniy Tagil), Inv-ESCO (Barnaul) and Spartak (Moscow).

In December, 1998, Moscow hosted World Amputee Football Festival, where a number of teams all over the world took part. That time was founded International Amputee Football Federation (IAFF). Countries from 3 continents, England, Georgia, Brazil, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia and USA took part in the Congress held by TACIS. According to the proposal of Georgia in establishing a motto it was agreed to be “Let’s replace minefields to football fields”. Ninety percent of Georgian delegation members were people wounded in mine explosions during the war in Abkhazia.

The motto which calls the humanity to live in peace and to be more attentive has a very deep meaning in many areas around the world especially where peoples are fighting each other.

Today, the world we are living is significantly changing in a positive way, and at the same time, forming a new shape among various peoples. Unfortunately, in some areas of the world, wars and disasters are killing and wounding lots of people.
The people who survived in these incidents are becoming disabled, and sport is serving to get them back into life, giving them inspiration for hope and belief in the future.

The motto “Let’s change minefields to football fields” of International Amputee Football Federation associates with economic and political relations among all nations worldwide. No doubt that outlook of amputee football players matches with the world community willing to promote humanity and peace.

These years, all official competitions of International Amputee Football Federation are being conducted in charity basis, and being financed by host countries organizing the events. This kind of financial relations contributes to the development of amputee football in all areas. In addition, for less developed countries having problem to send their delegation, the host countries try to meet their full needs including air-travel. The organization of these competitions is given to those countries which are able to fully finance the events.