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 beaches. Beach soccer was introduced in 1992 as an effort to codify rules for the game by the founders of Beach Soccer Worldwide, a company set up to develop the sport and responsible for the majority of its tournaments. FIFA has held the Beach Soccer World Cup biennially since 2005.

The first international matches were played in 1993 for men and 2009 for women. As of July 2023,^[update] there are 193 men's and 64 women's clubs and 101 men's and 23 women's national teams sorted in the Beach Soccer Worldwide Rankings.

Beach soccer or sand football (futebol de praia or futebol de areia) originated in Brazil, more precisely in Rio de Janeiro. In 1950, the first official tournament was created to unify small neighborhood tournaments that happened since 1940. It has grown to be an international game. The participation of international players such as Eric Cantona, Júnior, Romário and Zico has helped to expand the sport's popularity worldwide.

Beach soccer had been played recreationally for years and in different formats. In 1992, the laws of the game were envisioned and a pilot event was staged by the founding partners of Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) in Los Angeles, and the sport was adopted by Beach Soccer Los Angeles in 2017, being played all around Los Angeles County. By 1993, the first professional beach soccer competition was organized at Miami Beach with teams from the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Italy taking part.

In April 1994, the first event to be covered by network television transmissions was held on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, and the city hosted the first Beach Soccer World Championship in 1995. The competition was won by the host nation, making Brazil the first-ever world champions of Beach Soccer. Commercial interest began to match developments on the field, and growing demand for the sport around the world gave rise to the Pro Beach Soccer Tour in 1996.

The first Pro Beach Soccer Tour included a total of 60 games in two years across South America, Europe, Asia and the United States. Interest generated by the tour in Europe led to the creation of the European Pro Beach Soccer League in 1998, providing a more solid infrastructure that would increase the professionalism of the spectacle. EPBSL, now known as the Euro Beach Soccer League, brought promoters together from across the continent and satisfied the demands of the media, sponsors and fans. Four years on from its creation, the first step in the building of a legitimate worldwide competition structure for the sport of pro beach soccer had been taken.

Behind the scenes developments were also taking place, with the Beach Soccer Company relocating its headquarters to Europe, firstly to Monaco and then Barcelona, before becoming Pro Beach Soccer, S.L. in April 2000. One year later, they would join forces with Octagon Koch Tavares (who had continued to organise the World Championships and events in South America) to form a single entity known as Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), with the aim of unifying all major Pro Beach Soccer tournaments in the world under the same structure and providing representation of the sport to major sponsors, the media and FIFA.