FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

Foundation

The first Beach Soccer World Cup was held in Brazil, in 1995, organised by the precursors to the modern-day founders of the standardised rules, Beach Soccer Worldwide, held under the title Beach Soccer World Championship. Eight teams were selected to take part, without going through a qualification process. However Brazil, the hosts, dominated and easily won the cup without losing a game. The tournament was successful and BSWW announced that the competition would take place every year.

Growth worldwide

By 1997, more teams had already stated their interest in participating and therefore BSWW extended their selection to 10 teams for 1998. Brazil continued to dominate, despite this change. Immediately, BSWW extended to 12 teams for 1999, spreading their selection across five continents, introducing more new teams to the tournament. However, with all these changes it still took until the 2001 World Cup for Brazil to lose the title after winning the competition six years on the run since the establishment. It was Portugal who won the tournament, with Brazil finishing in a disappointing fourth place.

With this change of champions, more countries thought there was a chance for themselves to win the tournament and this sparked more interest worldwide. Not surprisingly, Brazil reclaimed their title in 2002, when BSWW reduced the number of contestants back to eight. The last Beach Soccer World Championship to be organised purely by BSWW was in 2004 when twelve teams played, seven from Europe.

FIFA Era

In 2005, FIFA paired up with BSWW to co-organise the World Cup, although FIFA seem to have the most control. They kept the tradition of holding the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro and continued to allow 12 teams to participate, following on from the 2004 competition. It was Eric Cantona's France that won the competition, after beating Portugal on penalties in the final. The tournament was deemed a major success and therefore FIFA took advantage. For the 2006 competition and beyond, FIFA decided to standardise the participants to 16 countries. It was then that the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Qualifiers were also established, that would take place throughout the year. Again this decision was a successful one and more countries became interested in a now standard FIFA competition.

Extending the World Cup

By the end of the 2007 World Cup, the tournament had become very popular throughout the world, with the FIFA board taking over the competition, driving more countries to recognize beach soccer as a major sport. Since the World Cup had become a success worldwide, FIFA decided to have a change of venue. It was voted, to extend the sport's popularity, the 2008 World Cup would take place in Marseille, France, and the 2009 World Cup would take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These tournaments would be the first to take place outside Brazil. The 2008 competition was once again a major success, despite being held in a different country. This was the first time that Brazil would have to qualify for the tournament, since they weren't the hosts. However Brazil won the qualifiers and the World Cup in July. The 2009 World Cup in Dubai was an even bigger success, as the second competition outside Brazil and the Beach Soccer World Cup's 15th birthday, Brazil continued their dominance.

Two year basis

Just before the final of the 2009 World Cup, FIFA announced that a new format would see the World Cup now take place every two years, starting from the 2011 World Cup. FIFA justified the decision by stating that they wanted Confederations to have more time to develop the sport, therefore allowing a year in between World Cups for Confederations to organise their own local tournaments. This was a mutual decision between Confederations and FIFA. In March 2010 FIFA confirmed that the 2011 World Cup would take place in Italy and the 2013 World Cup would take place in Tahiti.

Pre-2006

From 1995 until 2005 there was no standard qualification system for nations to go through to earn a place at the World Cup finals. The process in which teams gained entry into the finals was inconsistent from one year to the next throughout the confederations, often down to a simple invite to participate in the finals from BSWW, or potentially qualification by reaching the latter stages in a premier regional tournament with no prior ties with the World Cup, or perhaps by performing well in the previous World Cup.

During this period, nations from Africa, Asia and sometimes North America were the usual recipients of invitations, due to a lack of regional tournaments for BSWW to determine who was best in said region and worthy to play in the finals. Typically, European nations qualified by doing well in the Euro Beach Soccer League and South American nations in the Americas' League, sometimes jointly with North American nations who also qualified along with them in such circumstances. It was still common for other 'wild-card' European and South American nations to receive invites despite not performing well continentally. However, during the early years of the championships, invitation was the common form of eligibility for all nations.

2006 onwards

Following the success of the inaugural FIFA tournament in 2005, the number of teams at the finals was increased by FIFA to a record 16 and so the governing body along with BSWW met with individual confederations to set up a standard qualifying process for each world cup, by establishing regional championships for each continent. The winners of these championships would be crowned the best team in the region, promoting regional competitiveness, and most importantly act as a consistent method of qualification to the World Cup for the best teams of each confederation. This would also help increase the sport's awareness across all corners of the globe and make sure all confederations were represented at the finals at every following World Cup, unlike in the past.

Besides Europe, who continued to use the Euro Beach Soccer League as the method of World Cup qualification until 2008, all other confederations hosted their first championships in 2006 in view of the finals later that year.

Attendance

The allocation of World Cup spots and hence how many teams qualify from their regional championship to the World Cup was decided by FIFA in 2006 as follows:

^ As part of the Euro Beach Soccer League

The host country's continent loses one qualification spot. I.e. since the 2015 World Cup was held in Portugal, they automatically qualified taking up one of the five European spots. Therefore, in the 2015 UEFA qualifiers, only four teams qualified from the championships to join the hosts making the total of five European nations.

As shown in the table, attendance of nations in qualification tournaments continues to rise year on year with five confederations having over 10 participants in qualifying for the first time in 2015 and the total global number of participants has nearly doubled since 2006. However 2017 saw a drop in participation from the previous tournament for the first time.

Despite being the premier tournament in most regions, since the primary objective is to qualify to the World Cup, on a rare occasion teams have not bothered to participate due to qualifying to the finals automatically as hosts such as Brazil deferring from the 2007 CONMBEBOL Beach Soccer Championship and Tahiti in the 2013 OFC Beach Soccer Championship.

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

Key

Bold Years = FIFA tournaments * = Hosts

Successful national teams

Brazil are by far the most successful nation, with 13 titles. However their hold on the title has become less apparent since the tournament came under the control of FIFA and moved outside of Rio. They are followed by Russia (2011 and 2013) and Portugal (2001 and 2015) with two wins, and France with one title (2005). France won the first FIFA-sanctioned tournament in 2005. Brazil and Portugal are the only teams to win the world championship before and after FIFA started sanctioning the sport.

Overall 17 of the 42 nations who have ever competed have made a top four finish. Brazil remained the only nation to finish in the final four every championship until 2015 when they finished in fifth place. Of those 17 nations, only 7 have made a top four finish before and after FIFA started sanctioning the World Cup.

Key

Bold Years = FIFA tournaments * = Hosts

Tournament appearances as of 2015

Since the tournament's establishment in 1995, as of the 2015 World Cup, 42 different countries have participated over the 18 competitions. However, only one country has participated in all World Cups, which is Brazil. European teams have dominated in appearances by continent, since 14 of the 42 different countries have been from Europe, at least double than that of any other. Since qualification has been standardized, fewer new countries are expected to make an appearance.

Only 8 of the 42 countries have failed to appear in a FIFA controlled World Cup. Peru (5) have appeared in the most competitions without any one of those being under FIFA's control. Meanwhile, Iran (6) have appeared in the most FIFA sanctioned tournaments without having ever appeared in the old World Championships before 2005.

Key

Italics indicates pre-2005, non-FIFA World Championships

General Statistics FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2005-2015

Note: Win in Common Time W = 3 Points / Win in Extra Time WE = 2 Points / Win in Penalty shoot-out WP = 1 Point / Lose L = 0 Points

Golden Ball

The adidas Golden Ball award is awarded to the player who plays the most outstanding football during the tournament. It is selected by the media poll.

Golden Shoe

The adidas Golden Shoe is awarded to the topscorer of the tournament. If more than one players are equal by same goals, the players will be selected based by the most assists during the tournament.

Golden Glove

The Golden Glove Award is awarded to the best goalkeeper of the tournament.

FIFA Fair Play Award

FIFA Fair Play Award is given to the team who has the best fair play record during the tournament with the criteria set by FIFA Fair Play Committee.