FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

The first world cup of beach soccer 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 Championships. The last edition took place in 2004.

In 2005, FIFA paired up with BSWW to co-organise a new world cup competition, under FIFA's name. 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, 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.

A scene from the 2007 event in Brazil

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, that 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, with Brazil continuing their dominance.[1][2]

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 the confederations and FIFA.[3] 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.[4]

In 2013, FIFA extended the FIFA Champions Badge to the winners of the competition, where it was first won by Russia.[5]

The allocation of World Cup spots and the number of teams that 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 confederation 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 generally continues to rise year on year; the total global number of participants has nearly doubled since 2006.

Despite being the premier tournament in most regions, since the primary objective is to qualify to the World Cup, on rare occasions teams have not participated 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.

Overall, 13 of the 38 nations who have ever competed have made a top four finish; four have won the title.

Brazil are the most successful nation, with five wins. However, since the start of the 2010s, their hold on the title has become less apparent, with four of their five successes coming in the 2000s. They are followed by Russia and Portugal with two titles each, and France with one title. Brazil and Portugal are the only teams to win a world title before and after FIFA began sanctioning the sport.

Brazil were the only nation to finish in the final four of every tournament until 2015 when they finished in fifth place. Africa is the only region not to have a team reach the semi-finals / finish in the top four.

Team	Titles	Runners-up	Third place	Fourth place		Total top 4
Brazil	5 (2006*, 2007*, 2008, 2009, 2017)	1 (2011)	2 (2005*, 2013)	—		8
Portugal	2 (2015*, 2019)	1 (2005)	3 (2008, 2009, 2011)	1 (2006)		7
Russia	2 (2011, 2013)	—	2 (2015, 2019)	—		4
France	1 (2005)	—	1 (2006)	1 (2007)		3
Italy	—	2 (2008, 2019)	—	2 (2015, 2017)		4
Tahiti	—	2 (2015, 2017)	—	1 (2013*)		3
Uruguay	—	1 (2006)	1 (2007)	1 (2009)		3
Spain	—	1 (2013)	—	1 (2008)		2
Switzerland	—	1 (2009)	—	—		1
Mexico	—	1 (2007)	—	—		1
Iran	—	—	1 (2017)	—		1
Japan	—	—	—	2 (2005, 2019)		2
El Salvador	—	—	—	1 (2011)		1

Key

* = Hosts

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.

World Cup	Golden Ball	Silver Ball	Bronze Ball	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Madjer	Neném	Amarelle	[7]
2006 Brazil	Madjer	Benjamin	Bruno	[8]
2007 Brazil	Buru	Madjer	Morgan Plata	[9]
2008 France	Amarelle	Benjamin	Belchior	[10]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Dejan Stankovic	Madjer	Benjamin	[11]
2011 Italy	Ilya Leonov	André	Frank Velásquez	[12]
2013 Tahiti	Bruno Xavier	Ozu Moreira	Raimana Li Fung Kuee	[13]
2015 Portugal	Heimanu Taiarui	Alan	Madjer	[14]
2017 Bahamas	Mohammad Ahmadzadeh	Mauricinho	Datinha	[15]
2019 Paraguay	Ozu Moreira	Jordan Santos	Bê Martins	[16]

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

World Cup	Golden Shoe	Goals	Silver Shoe	Goals	Bronze Shoe	Goals	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Madjer	12	Neném	9	Anthony Mendy	8	[7]
2006 Brazil	Madjer	21	Benjamin	12	Bruno	10	[8]
2007 Brazil	Buru	10	Morgan Plata	9	Bruno	8	[9]
2008 France	Madjer	13	Amarelle	11	Belchior	10	[10]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Dejan Stankovic	16	Madjer	11	Buru	10	[11]
2011 Italy	André	14	Madjer	12	Frank Velásquez	9	[12]
2013 Tahiti	Dmitry Shishin	11	Bruno Xavier	10	Agustín Ruiz	7	[17]
2015 Portugal	Pedro Morán	8	Madjer	8	Noël Ott	8	[18]
2017 Bahamas	Gabriele Gori	17	Rodrigo	9	Mohammad Ahmadzadeh	9	[15]
2019 Paraguay	Gabriele Gori	16	Emmanuele Zurlo	10	Fedor Zemskov	10	[16]

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

World Cup	Golden Glove	Ref(s)
2008 France	Roberto Valeiro	[10]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Mão	[11]
2011 Italy	Andrey Bukhlitskiy	[12]
2013 Tahiti	Dona	[17]
2015 Portugal	Jonathan Torohia	[18]
2017 Bahamas	Peyman Hosseini	[15]
2019 Paraguay	Elinton Andrade	[16]

The 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.

Tournament	FIFA Fair Play Award	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Japan	[7]
2006 Brazil	France	[8]
2007 Brazil	Brazil	[9]
2008 France	Russia	[10]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Japan  Russia	[11]
2011 Italy	Nigeria	[12]
2013 Tahiti	Russia	[17]
2015 Portugal	Brazil	[18]
2017 Bahamas	Brazil	[15]
2019 Paraguay	Senegal	[16]