Beach Soccer Worldwide

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).[6][11] In 1992, Signorini staged a pilot event in Los Angeles 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, Florida. A keen interest was taken by Brazilian sports marketing agency, Koch Tavares, who replicated the event in 1994 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Viking Graham Sports Group, a Philadelphia based investment group, acquired BSI's rights to stage professional beach soccer events, forming a partnership with Signorini to create Beach Soccer Company.[6][12]

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 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.[6]

In 2001, the entity of Koch Tavares responsible for beach soccer and PBS came together to create 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.[6][13] 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 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.[6]

A scene from a 2008 BSWW Tour event between Israel and Turkey

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.[14] 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.[15] During this time, BSWW also brought on board major sponsors such as MasterCard, McDonald's and Coca-Cola for certain time period.[7]

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.[16] 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.[10]

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,[7] 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.[8] 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.[17]

BSWW Vice-President and FIFA committee member Joan Cuscó

A scene from the 2015 CONMEBOL Beach Soccer Championship match between Brazil and Paraguay with the BSWW logo on hoarding visible in the background

Since then, BSWW has continued to develop the sport worldwide, now aided greatly with FIFA's beach soccer training courses and refereeing.[18][19] The Euro Beach Soccer League (dropping the pro from the title in 2004 as it was no longer reflecting of the company name)[20] 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 and Cape Verde with around 10 tour events a year.[21] 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) since 2011 and generating more interest from big sponsors like Samsung[22] and Huawei.[23]

BSWW representatives, in partnership with FIFA, have liaised with the International Olympic Committee a number of times, with Olympic-affiliated events such as the Asian Beach Games integrating beach soccer from 2008 onward, the South American Beach Games from 2009 and the European Games starting from 2015. The ultimate aim is to have beach soccer a sport in the summer Olympics.[24][25][26] But despite a campaign for inclusion in the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics.,[26] 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,[27] allowing the federation to promote the club side of the game more, establishing the Mundialito de Clubs (Club World Cup) in 2011[28] and the Euro Winners Cup (similar to the UEFA Champions League) in 2013.[29]

Development of the women's game has also become a target for BSWW, with the first official game between Switzerland and Germany in 2009,[30] 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[31] 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.[9] Vice-president Joan Cuscó continues to serve on FIFA's Beach Soccer committee as BSWW's representative.[32] In 2017, BSWW and FIFA agreed to extend their partnership until at least 2024.[33]

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