Overview

Event Summary

The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup is an international beach soccer competition contested by the world's best men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. The 2021 edition will take place at the Luzhniki stadium, in Moscow (Russia) from the 19 to 29 August. The list of qualified teams is:

• Russia (host)
• Spain
• Belarus
• Portugal
• Switzerland
• UAE
• Oman
• Japan
• Tahiti
• Senegal
• Mozambique
• USA
• El Salvador
• Brazil 
• Paraguay
• Uruguay

The tournament was preceded by the Beach Soccer World Championships, established in 1995, which took place every year for the next decade under the supervision of Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) and its predecessors. Due to the sport's rapid growth, FIFA took an interest in the sport, and as the main tournament in world beach soccer, it joined hands with BSWW in 2005 to take over the organisation of the competition, re-branding it as an official FIFA tournament. Since 2009, the tournament has taken place every two years to allow continental tournaments to flourish without the burden of the World Cup qualifiers crowding the schedule every 12 months. The growing global popularity of beach soccer resulted in FIFA's decision to move the stage of the World Cup from its native home in Brazil to other parts of the globe to capitalise on and continue to stimulate global interest. The first edition held outside Brazil was in 2008 in Marseille, France. The current tournament format lasts over approximately 10 days and involves 16 teams initially competing in four groups of four teams. The group winners and runners-up advance to a series of knock-out stages until the champion is crowned. The losing semi-finalists play each other in a play-off match to determine the third and fourth-placed teams. The most recent edition in 2019 was held in Asunción, Paraguay, and crowned Portugal as champions for the second time – after defeating Italy 4–6 in the final.