A draft calendar for the coming beach soccer season was presented to the audience at Dubai Sports Council HQ
The official launch of the 2022 beach soccer season returned to its usual time and place in Dubai on Friday 5 November.
In attendance were some of the biggest names in the sport such as 2021 Best Coach nominee Angelo Schirinzi, starting his birthday celebrations at the Season Launch, Ozu, this year named in the final three nominees for Best Player, Mikhail Likhachev, head coach of the recently crowned FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup champions, as well as Portuguese beach soccer legend, Madjer.
To open proceeding, Gabino Renales, Vice-President of Beach Soccer Worldwide, welcomed the guests at the Dubai Sports Council Headquarters. “Thank you to everyone for being here, to make this possible again and thank you to Dubai Sports Council for hosting the season launch once more, and for the long working relationship we’ve had developing beach soccer.”
Ricardo Garcia, Director of Competitions at BSWW, then outlined the new project of the Centres of Excellence. “We really want to develop beach soccer on a global scale. Our idea is that these Centres of Excellence will a big step forward in the growth of the sport. We want to have a headquarters on every continent, and a contact there.”
Then it was the turn of Michele Conti, FIFA Referee Coordinator, to discuss the changes in the Laws of the Game. “We are always trying to improve the game to attract new teams, new players and new fans,” he commented, and then received some questions from the players and coaches in the audience.
After that, Iñaki Uribarri, Director of Communications at BSWW, brought the subject of women’s beach soccer to the floor, outlining a four-pillar plan, and highlighted the importance of visibility and awareness in growing the women’s game.
“We have put a lot of effort into the development of the women’s game. We went from three national teams in 2015 to 25 this year. But there is always room for improvement. Only 12% of the national associations have women’s teams.”
A big step in the development and streamlining of beach soccer events has been the new platform My Beach Soccer, and Laura Cusco, Director of Marketing, and Rafael Devisate from the competitions department, provided a quick rundown of how the system works and the huge advantages it will provide for everyone involved in the beach soccer events.
Finally, the exciting moment of the calendar reveal came, as Josep Ponset, Director of Events, went through a preliminary draft of the 2022 season.
He had some important announcements about alterations to some classic events. “In the 2022 Euro Beach Soccer League, four Division B teams will be promoted to Division A.”
On top of that, he revealed exiting news about editions to the beach soccer scene. “We have new teams who will be entering the competitions next year, including Belgium, Malta and Israel”
He also revealed that the 2023 European Games will include both men’s and women’s categories for the first time.
See you in 2022!
