Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) is the organisation responsible for the founding and growth of the

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

-based sport of

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or sand soccer, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand between two teams of five players each. Association football has long been played informally on ...

. The founding partners of BSWW codified the rules of beach soccer in 1992, with BSWW as it is known today having been officially founded in late 2000 as a singular institution to develop the sport and organise international beach soccer competitions across the globe, primarily between national teams. The company is recognised as playing the biggest role in helping to establish the rules of beach soccer and to spread and evolve the sport around the world, as cited by

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

, who took on governing body status of the sport from BSWW in 2005. Having established the sport's key regulations, FIFA acknowledged BSWW's framework, making their rules the official laws of beach soccer. Beach Soccer Worldwide, with FIFA's assistance, continues to be the main organisation that arranges beach soccer tournaments and fosters the sport's development around the world, mainly in Europe, including the Euro Beach Soccer League, BSWW exhibition tour events and others, having involved over 110 national teams in the sport, and created new club competitions. Its founders also established the Beach Soccer World Championships; in 2005, BSWW created a partnership with FIFA to manage the tournament as the

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup is an international beach soccer competition contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. The tournament was preceded by the Beach Soccer World Championshi ...

, the only major international beach soccer tournament that BSWW does not have a hand in organising, being entirely a FIFA competition. Members of the organisation serve on FIFA's Beach Soccer Committee. The first international matches were played in 1993 for men and 2009 for women. As of July 2023, 193 men's/64 women's clubs and 101 men's/23 women's national teams were sorted in the world rankings.

History

Founding

BSWW's routes are traced back to 1992 with the establishment of the official rules of the sport by Giancarlo Signorini, the founding partner of ''Beach Soccer Company (BSC)''. In 1992, Signorini staged a pilot event in

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in order to test out and perfect these rules which remain very similar today. In July 1993, with the aid of his own company, BSI, Signorini organised the first professional beach soccer event, held on

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. A keen interest was taken by Brazilian sports marketing agency, Koch Tavares, who replicated the event in 1994 in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and Viking Graham Sports Group, a

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

based investment group, acquired BSI's rights to stage professional beach soccer events, forming a partnership with Signorini to create ''Beach Soccer Company''. Koch Tavares and BSC went on to be the main two entities involved in promoting beach soccer for the rest of the 1990s, with the former responsible for organising the ''Beach Soccer World Championships'' beginning in 1995, and the latter establishing the '' Pro Beach Soccer Tour'' in 1996, a series of worldwide professional exhibition tournaments to promote the sport, and the '' European Pro Beach Soccer League'' in 1998, all contested between national teams as opposed to clubs. BSC relocated to

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

in 1998 and again to Barcelona in 1999, renaming to become ''Pro Beach Soccer, S.L. (PBS)'' in 2000 to reflect the branding of their established events. In October 2000, the entity of Koch Tavares responsible for beach soccer and PBS came together to register one single company in order to streamline development of the sport under one unifying company, as opposed to multiple parties involved trying to synchronise progress between one another, officially forming Beach Soccer Worldwide, opting to remain based in Barcelona. Starting with the 2001 season, BSWW took on roles of organising all major competitions of the preceding companies including the Pro Beach Soccer Tour and European Pro Beach Soccer League, whilst supervising the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

and the newly created America's League, all remaining focused on national teams. This was also done to make it easier to bring on board sponsors, coordinate media coverage and present the football alternative to FIFA under a clearly defined, all-encompassing, representative body for beach soccer.

FIFA partnership

BSWW's attention immediately turned to FIFA. Beach Soccer Company had already ensured all tournaments from 2000 onwards were played under FIFA's fair play rules and delegates from both parties met multiple times to discuss for BSWW's rules of the sport and competitions to gain recognition and backing of football's governing body. By 2002, FIFA had come to an agreement with BSWW to adopt the rules and regulations that had been established over the previous decade, with some minor changes to ensure FIFA's interest in key components of regular football were respected and acknowledging key major tournaments in the sport including the World Championships. During this time, BSWW also brought on board major sponsors such as MasterCard,

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

and

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

for certain time period. The involvement with FIFA was furthered in 2004 when ''FIFA Beach Soccer S.L.'' was established in agreement and partnership with BSWW, to take over responsibility of the World Championships, being beach soccer's primary tournament, to become an official FIFA competition. The newly named ''FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup'' would start in 2005, with BSWW staff acting as advisers. It was also agreed that FIFA would become the sport's governing body, taking over from BSWW. However at this time FIFA also recognised BSWW as the main entity behind past and more importantly continuing promotion and development of the sport elsewhere besides the new World Cup, and so BSWW retained the organisation responsibilities and control of other beach soccer championships like the EBSL, with FIFA only taking full control of the World Cup. So much so that after the first successful World Cup in 2005, when FIFA established World Cup qualifying tournaments to promote the sport across all confederations to start in 2006, all responsibility was handed to BSWW to organise and execute such events, with FIFA only supervising.

Continued development

Since then, BSWW has continued to develop the sport worldwide, now aided greatly with FIFA's beach soccer training courses and refereeing. The Euro Beach Soccer League (dropping the ''pro'' from the title in 2004 as it was no longer reflecting of the company name) has remained BSWW's main asset, gathering up to 27 nations to compete in recent editions compared to just 7 in the first event in 1998 in a summer-long event. The Pro Beach Soccer Tour has also been renamed to the BSWW Tour for the same reasons, continuing exhibition events to promote the sport as far wide and remote as

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

and

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

with around 10 tour events a year. BSWW has continued organising the World Cup qualifiers, as well as establishing new regular international competitions such as the Intercontinental Cup (similar to the

FIFA Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships ( AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBO ...

) since 2011 and generating more interest from big sponsors like

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

and

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...

. BSWW representatives, in partnership with FIFA, have liaised with the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

a number of times, with Olympic-affiliated events such as the

Asian Beach Games The Asian Beach Games, also known as ABG, is a multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games have been organized by the Olympic Council of Asia. The Games are described as the second or third largest Asian m ...

integrating beach soccer from 2008 onward, the South American Beach Games from 2009 and the

European Games The European Games is a continental multi-sport event in the Olympic tradition contested by athletes from countries served by national Olympic committees within the European Olympic Committees (EOC), the regional association for such committ ...

starting from 2015. The ultimate aim is to have beach soccer a sport in the

summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

. But despite a campaign for inclusion in the

Rio 2016 The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

and Tokyo 2020 Olympics., the sport was ultimately not included and so lobbying in cooperation with FIFA continues, to ultimately fulfil the goal of making beach soccer an Olympic sport. In 2017, BSWW secured beach soccer as a sport at the inaugural Olympic-affiliated World Beach Games in 2019 and hope to use its inclusion as a springboard for future absorption into the Summer Olympics. More recently, a greater involvement from certain confederations in organising World Cup qualifying championships has eased the full involvement of BSWW, allowing the federation to promote the club side of the game more, establishing the Mundialito de Clubs (Club World Cup) in 2011 and the

Euro Winners Cup The Euro Winners Cup (EWC) is an annual, continental beach soccer club competition contested between top-division European teams; the clubs that are their country's national league/cup champions (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) from ...

(similar to the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

) in 2013. Development of the women's game has also become a target for BSWW, with the first official game between Switzerland and Germany in 2009, promoting further international exhibition tournaments and friendlies involving nations such as England, Italy and the Czech Republic, with the Euro Winners Cup having a 16-club women's version for the first time in 2016 and the first Women's Euro Beach Soccer Cup also taking place in 2016. BSWW has organised and delivered over 200 international events in more than 50 countries worldwide, involving over 110 nations from all confederations, assembling an audience of over 250 million households in 180 countries. Vice-president Joan Cuscó continues to serve on FIFA's Beach Soccer committee as BSWW's representative. In 2017, BSWW and FIFA agreed to extend their partnership until at least 2024.

Identity

Flag

Stars awards

It has been standard practice for BSWW to award prizes to the top scorer,

MVP MVP most commonly refers to: * Most valuable player, an award, typically for the best performing player in a sport or competition * Minimum viable product, a concept for feature estimating used in business and engineering MVP may also refer to: ...

and best goalkeeper at the conclusion every event of their organisation. However, in 2014, BSWW took this concept of awards to a new level, establishing beach soccer's first annual end of season

awards ceremony An awards ceremony is a type of ceremony where awards are given out. The ceremony may be arranged by a government organization, a society, a school, a trade association or even a company that specializes in running awards ceremonies. Typically a m ...

, taking place during November in

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

. The ceremony, a gala event attended by many of the world's leading figures in the sport, celebrates the achievements of top performers worldwide over the course of the season and has been compared to FIFA's The Best awards and the

Ballon d'Or The Ballon d'Or (; ) is an annual association football, football award presented by French magazine ''France Football'' since 1956 Ballon d'Or, 1956 to honour the player deemed to have performed the best over the previous season. Conceived ...

, in both importance, grandeur and equivalence for those involved in beach soccer. Some of the many prizes awarded on the night include best player of the year, best coach of the year, best goal and best team.

BSWW structured tournaments

BSWW organises and has an input in many different competitions; the following are regular events that are ongoing: Advisory role: *

Considerable input, with involvement from confederations, under the supervision of FIFA: * AFC Beach Soccer Championship *

Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations The Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations (BSAFCON) is the beach soccer tournament of Africa, organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Launched in 2006, the winners of each edition qualifies for African nations to the upcoming FIFA ...

* CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship * CONMEBOL Beach Soccer Championship * OFC Beach Soccer Championship * FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers (UEFA) *

Euro Beach Soccer League The Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL) is the premier competition in beach soccer featuring European men's national teams. The competition has been held annually since its establishment in 1998, making it the oldest beach soccer tournament in Europe ...

* Euro Beach Soccer Cup (formerly) * Intercontinental Cup * Mundialito * Multiple BSWW Tour exhibition tournaments per year * Persian Beach Soccer Cup * Mundialito de Clubes *

* Americas Winners Cup *

Women's Euro Winners Cup The Women's Euro Winners Cup (WEWC) is an annual continental beach soccer club competition contested between top-division European women's teams; the clubs that are their country's national league/cup champions (and, for some nations, one or more r ...

* Women's Americas Winners Cup Affiliation only: *

World Beach Games The ANOC World Beach Games, known simply as the ''World Beach Games'', is an international multi-sport event organized by the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC). The games are held wikt:Special:Search/biennially, biennially in odd-n ...

Mediterranean Beach Games The Mediterranean Beach Games is a multi-sport event organized by the International Committee of Mediterranean Games (CIJM) since 2015. Formation The CIJM formed the games in a meeting on October 20, 2012 in Mersin, Turkey, and decided on a for ...

* South American Beach Games * African Beach Games

Current title holders

Teams

National teams with year of first international game:

Men

Russia national beach soccer team The Russia national beach soccer team (, ''Sbornaya Rossii po plyazhnomu futbolu'') represents Russia in international beach soccer competitions and is controlled by the Russian Football Union, the governing body for football in Russia. The tea ...

(1996) # Denmark national beach soccer team (1996) # France national beach soccer team (1996) # Spain national beach soccer team (1996) # Belgium national beach soccer team (1996) # Malaysia national beach soccer team (1996) # Yugoslavia national beach soccer team (1996) # Portugal national beach soccer team (1996) # Peru national beach soccer team (1998) # Switzerland national beach soccer team (1998) # Austria national beach soccer team (1998) #

Nigeria national beach soccer team The Nigerian national beach soccer team represents Nigeria in international beach soccer competitions and is controlled by the Nigeria Football Federation, the governing body for football in Nigeria. Competitive record World Cup record Africa ...

Australia national beach soccer team The Australia national beach soccer team represents Australia in international men's beach soccer. The team is controlled by the governing body for association football in Australia, Football Australia, which is currently a member of the Asian ...

Senegal national beach soccer team The Senegal national beach soccer team represents Senegal in international beach soccer competitions and is controlled by the Senegalese Football Federation, the governing body for football in Senegal. It is the most successful African beach soc ...

Women

Spain women's national beach soccer team The Spain women's national beach soccer team represents Spain in international women's beach soccer competitions and is controlled by the RFEF, the governing body for football in Spain. Competitive records Euro Beach Soccer Cup The ''Taça E ...

Rankings

BSWW established a ranking system for European teams in the mid-2000s as the majority of tournaments are held in Europe and it is the most active continent for national teams. Hence the ranking was used for seeding in competitions like the EBSL. However, in 2014, BSWW created the first world ranking table based on a similar system to FIFA's world ranking for association football national teams.

Foundation

Beach Soccer Worldwide extends its commitment beyond purely sport development. In 2009, the Beach Soccer Foundation was created by BSWW to tackle three main issues surrounding the sport: * Environmental protection through awareness and recycling * The development of children and young people through sport * Awareness and prevention of

skin cancer Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the Human skin, skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells (biology), cells that have the ability to invade or metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. It occurs when skin cells grow ...

History Results Database

beach SOCCER RESULTS
(1993-2019)
Beach Soccer Worldwide
(1993-2020)
All-time results
(2021-Ongoing)

(2010-2023)

(2010-2023)

(2010-2020)
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) - FIFA.com
(Results in Team Profile)

References

External links

*
Beach Soccer Worldwide
on Facebook
Beach Soccer Worldwide
on Twitter
FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
on FIFA {{National women's beach soccer teams Worldwide International sports organizations Organisations based in Barcelona Sports organizations established in 2001