Beach Soccer Histories (Routledge Studies in Modern History) [1 ed.] 1032264977, 9781032264974

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Routledge Studies in Modern History

BEACH SOCCER HISTORIES Lee McGowan, Elizabeth Ellison, and Michele Lastella

Beach Soccer Histories

Beach Soccer Histories is the first text to consider the sport as a historical, social and cultural phenomenon, to define its traditions, and present leading research on the development and significance of football played on sand. Following a period of expansive, rapid growth, beach soccer is an internationally governed professional sport, which has come a long way from its origins in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s. The sand-based variant is distinguished from football by a range of factors, including the dramatic impact of the playing surface. Yet, the game has undergone very little academic scrutiny. This research adopts and adapts qualitative methods related to oral history and football studies, including extensive archival research, semi-structured interviews, and textual and thematic analyses. As it looks beneath the game’s contemporary reach, it considers origins, organisations – including FIFA’s influence – and the beach cultures that underpin its sporting and historical development. This the most comprehensive exploration of beach soccer and a century of its existence. Beach Soccer Histories examines the game’s historical development, critical moments and movements in its progress, successes and contentions, and its contemporary state of play with a view to deepening and advancing our understanding of the game. Lee McGowan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast. His primary research interests are in the intersections of creative writing, sport (particularly football), and community engagement. His publications include books, journal articles, book chapters, a digital history, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Elizabeth Ellison is Associate Professor and Deputy Dean (Research) for the School of Education and the Arts at Central Queensland University. She has researched the Australian beach since her PhD (2013) situated within creative arts and cultural studies. She also has a focus on applied regional arts, leading research projects in the Centre for Research in Equity & Advancement of Teaching and Education. Michele Lastella is Senior Lecturer and researcher at the Appleton Institute for Behavioural Science at CQUniversity. His primary area of expertise is sleep, recovery, and sport psychology. Being a former Beach Socceroo, Michele brings experience from both an athlete’s perspective as well as a researcher’s perspective.

Routledge Studies in Modern History

Women’s Football in Oceania Lee McGowan, Kasey Symons, and Yoko Kanemasu Catholics and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Global World Edited by Eveline G. Bouwers The Saga of Edmund Burke From His Day to Ours Mark Hulliung Citizenship, Migration and Social Rights Historical Experiences from the 1870s to the 1970s Edited by Beate Althammer Tourism in Natural and Agricultural Ecosystems in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Martino Lorenzo Fagnani and Luciano Maffi The Making of a World Order Global Historical Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles Edited by Albert Wu and Stephen W. Sawyer Beach Soccer Histories Lee McGowan, Elizabeth Ellison and Michele Lastella

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Modern-History/book-series/MODHIST

Beach Soccer Histories Lee McGowan, Elizabeth Ellison, and Michele Lastella

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Lee McGowan, Elizabeth Ellison and Michele Lastella The right of Lee McGowan, Elizabeth Ellison and Michele Lastella to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-26497-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-26498-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28854-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541 Typeset in Galliard by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To colliding interests. To Signorini, Cuscó, the Whalens and beach soccer’s modern pioneers. To past and future Beach Socceroos. Always was, always will be.

Contents

List of Acronyms Acknowledgements 1 Beach Soccer Contexts

viii x 1

2 The Beach: More Than a Pitch

23

3 Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context

37

4 Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994

66

5 Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012

82

6 Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019

102

7 Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021

117

8 Beach Soccer in 2023

136

Index

144

Acronyms

Asian Football Confederation Australian Football League American League of Professional Football Clubs Association of National Olympic Committees Australian Women’s Soccer Association Beach Soccer Championships (Oceanside, California) Beach Soccer Company Beach Soccer Worldwide Confederation of African Football Confederação de Beach Soccer do Brasil [Brazilian Beach Soccer Confederation] CIFA the Cook Islands Football Association CISNOC Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee CONCACAF Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football CONMEBOL Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol [South American Football Confederation] CNMI Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands COVID-19 coronavirus disease 2019 EBSL European Beach Soccer League EPBSL European Pro Beach Soccer League FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association FBSSL FIFA Beach Soccer SL (société limitée) [limited company] FCF Fédération Calédonienne de Football [New Caledonia Football Federation] FFA Fiji Football Association FFF French Football Federation FSM Federated States of Micronesia FTF Fédération Tahitienne de Football [Tahiti Football Federation] KIFF Kiribati Islands Football Federation IOC International Olympic Committee ISL International Soccer League AFC AFL ALPFC ANOC AWSA BeSoCha BSC BSWW CAF CBSB

Acronyms ix LAFA MFA MLS NASL NASSC NBSL NPSL NRL NSL OFC PABS PBS RMI SIFF TFA TIFA UEFA US USA USSF USMBSNT USWBSNT USWNT VFF WBG WBSL WEBSL WNSL WPS WUSA

Liga de Amadores de Foot-ball na Areia [Amateur League of Soccer on Sand] Malaita Football Association Major League Soccer North American Soccer League North American Sand Soccer Championship US National Beach Soccer League National Professional Soccer League National Rugby League National Soccer League (Australia) Oceania Football Confederation Pro Am Beach Soccer Pro Beach Soccer Republics of the Marshall Islands Solomon Islands Football Federation Tonga Football Association Tuvalu Islands Football Association Union des associations européennes de football [Union of European Football Associations] United States (of America) United Soccer Association United States Soccer Federation or US Soccer United States Men’s Beach Soccer National Team United States Women’s Beach Soccer National Team United States Women’s National Team Vanuatu Football Federation World Beach Games Wollongong Beach Soccer League Women’s Euro Beach Soccer League Women’s National Soccer League (US) Women’s Professional Soccer Women’s United Soccer Association

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the Butchulla, Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi, Jaggera, Turrbal, and Kaurna peoples as the First Nations owners of the lands where this research was and continues to be produced. These lands have always been places of teaching, research, and learning. We recognise these peoples’ continuing connection to land, water, and community and pay our respect to their Elders, lores, customs and creation spirits. We wish to acknowledge the time and support provided by our respective institutions, the University of the Sunshine Coast and Central Queensland University. For the guidance, ongoing support, and incredible encouragement we thank the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research and the leadership of Professor Steven Underhill, Centre Manager Dr Inez Mahony and at CQU, A/Prof Jo Dargusch. For their time and input and willingness to support the project we thank the generosity of those people who shared their time, their knowledge, their insights, networks and connections, and patience with our questions and enthusiasm and support for the project, we thank Airton Andrioli, Alfredo Esteves, Ante Juric, Bruno Avila, Chris LeMay, David Zdrilic, George Souris, Iñaki Urribarri, João Escudero, Lauren Bland, Matt Whalen, Michael Matricciani, Peter Crevani, Seeseei Molimau-Samasoni, Sheridan Rabbitt, Vito Basile, and all the other people who leant us their time and expertise and insight. We are very grateful to Roy Hay for his time, patience, guidance, inspiration, and great work. We are also very grateful for the work of Mark Maxwell and Coccolino Deep for their important contributions to the research environment. At Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) we thank Chief of the Football Division, Patrick Jacquemet, a former player and coach in Tahiti and the sport’s earliest proponent at the regional level, and Head of Football Development, Paul Toohey who are endeavouring to support the national football associations in the development and organisation of beach soccer activities from grassroots through to senior levels. We thank Beach Soccer Worldwide, NASSC, Soccer in the Sand, Pro Beach Soccer, Football Queensland and all of the organisations who helped with the research and are working hard for the good of the game.

Acknowledgements xi No football research of this nature would be possible without the incredible resources collected on the online resources of Wikipedia, and the understated, but no less spectacular work of those who administer Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (www.rsssf.org) and Mark Cruickshank at The Roon Ba (theroonba. com). We are very grateful for their generous maintenance of the records. An important factor in this work is the invaluable assistance of our colleague, Arthur Passos, which has enabled access to works published in Portuguese. For reading, corrections, diagrams, and good guidance, we thank the staff at Kettle of Fish Design, particularly Leah Farrell for her meticulous eye. There are many other persons whose assistance made this book possible. They are not named here, not for lack of gratitude but because they sought anonymity. The analyses and views presented in this book are not necessarily shared by the above persons. All errors are entirely down to the authorial team.

Chapter One Beach Soccer Contexts

Introduction Football, or soccer, is a simple game. This is perhaps the single most important factor in its unparalleled universality. The world’s most popular sport has few basic rules and requires fewer practical resources. Space to play, a ball, or ball-shaped object, markers for a goal, the game’s objective, and one or more participants. These aspects of its design enable expansive participation and fuel common romantic myths associated with the game’s seeming negation of advantage – irrespective of location, the playing field is figuratively, if not always, literally level. The beach, however, is a rare site of practice where the nature of the playing surface fundamentally changes the ways participants must approach the game. Not all footballers can play beach soccer, but beach soccer is an excellent proving ground for footballers. Wherever beach soccer is played, whether it is Virginia Beach (United States [US]) – haven to the world’s largest tournament; Kwai Island – island home to most of Solomon Islands men’s national team; Barcelona – headquarters to Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), the sport’s international administrative body; or the Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro – the city of beach soccer’s origins, we see footballers reshape their craft. Beach soccer, football played on sand, is first and foremost a form of football, an increasingly popular variant. The tenets of the professional version of its paternal code guide play: matches are contested by two teams; with a football; on a pre-determined pitch; with the aim of scoring more goals than the opposing team. Several distinguishing features differentiate beach soccer from football. Teams consist of five players (four outfield players and a goalkeeper) in comparison to the traditional 11 (ten outfield players and a goalkeeper). The field of play is significantly smaller (35 m-37 m by 26 m-28 m) than the recommended dimensions in professional football (105 m by 68 m average) (beachsoccer.com, n.d.; FIFA.com, 2021). Most matches are divided into three periods of 12 minutes with 3-minute rest intervals between periods (though there are exceptions). This differentiates from the standard two halves of 45 minutes in football. Every foul is a direct free kick (players can shoot at goal) in beach soccer. A smaller field and closer proximity of players to the goals (which are not proportionately smaller) facilitate a greater number of shots and DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-1

2  Beach Soccer Contexts a higher frequency of goals scored. Where traditional matches take place on grass pitches, as the name suggests, beach soccer pitches are marked out on a beach, or similar sand-based surface. It is this site of practice – a minimum of 40 centimetres deep, free of pebbles and shells (beachsoccer.com. (n.d.; FIFA. com, 2021) – which changes with every contact that is responsible for the substantial rethink in game play. The shifting, uneven nature of the sandy playing surface impacts speed and ease of movement, is taxing for participants, and prohibits longer match play, even where substitutions are unlimited (another deviation from the rules of 11-a-side football, which allow for a maximum of five). In addition, the ball does not roll as anticipated and bounces in inconsistent and irregular fashion. Much of the game must take place ‘above’ rather than ‘on’ the pitch (McGowan et al., 2020a). Players must lob or volley the ball to teammates to ensure pass rate success. The resulting constraints on ball movement and player manoeuvrability generate innovation not always applicable or even practical in the grass-based format (see Marquez et al., 2016a; McGowan et al., 2020b). While the footballer’s core skills and positional awareness are key to beach soccer, the capacity for acrobatic play, bicycle kicks or ‘bikes’, and other ball juggling regarded as complementary, perhaps luxurious, in standard football, are practically mandatory in beach soccer matches (Lastella et al., 2020; McGowan et al., 2020a, 2020b). Beach soccer is charged with a broad range of dynamic tensions, from its selected location to the various bodies responsible for its various levels of organisation. As discussed in more detail in Chapter 2, the beach itself is a contested site in many countries, especially those in which invasive colonial histories were initiated on sand-based shores (Ellison & Brien, 2020). Many coastal locations rely heavily on tourism and those agencies who dominate and exploit international tourism, many of them transnational organisations who lean on local labour forces (McFarlane-Morris, 2019). Inequalities across beach communities can be stark. The exploitative costs of highly desirable beachside accommodation can reduce the locals’ ability to remain in their hometown (Sealy, 2018). At its most simplistic level, the sport’s name speaks to incongruencies inherent in a highly competitive sport taking place in a location commonly associated with the sun, the sea, leisure, and relaxation. Beach soccer tournaments often occur in exotic locales, notable holiday destinations – Tahiti, the Bahamas, and the Seychelles – and regularly feature tense, high-scoring matches played by world-leading elite athletes. The peak competition for men’s beach soccer is a biennial World Cup tournament, involving as many as 98 different countries, and facilitated by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). However, world football’s governing body does not have a global monopoly on the sport’s governance. Traditionally dominant, ‘powerhouse’ football nations do not necessarily make the most successful teams. Brazil have won ten men’s FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups (including its predecessor the World Championships) as well as five men’s FIFA World Cups, which is arguably to be expected. However, Tahiti, who have never qualified for a FIFA World Cup, have two runners up medals (2015, 2017) losing out to Portugal

Beach Soccer Contexts 3 and Brazil, two of the world’s best teams, at successive FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups. A focus on women’s beach soccer highlights a small number of historical parallels with the development of women’s football, particularly in Brazil (see Chapter 4), but the women’s game’s rapid and healthy contemporary development, while in keeping with women’s sport shifting toward the mainstream more generally, is a (very) recent phenomenon. A conspicuous and somewhat striking example of differentiation between beach soccer and 11-a-side football is the development of the game in the US. The annual North American Sand Soccer Championships (NASSC) is a larger event than FIFA’s Beach Soccer World Cup, if we account for teams and numbers of people involved. Further, there are several aspects of the amateur tournament that appear on the surface to be an anathema to the polished professional competition playing out in Europe and the Arabian Peninsula (see Chapters 3 and 5). However, its longevity, organisation, and inclusive approach (including women’s beach soccer) exemplify beach soccer’s global scale, scope, and diversity across time periods and geographical regions, and the ways its growth and popularity do not always reflect the anticipated distribution of a football code or its governance. In allusion to the histories of its paternal code, claims to its origins suggest the invention of beach soccer took place in the early 1990s alongside the formalisation of its rules and regulations (see Chapter 3). It is more likely that beach soccer has existed for almost a century. Yet, it was 2006, with the interpolation of FIFA, when the sport experienced its most notable shift toward football’s mainstream centre along with increased levels of professionalism. Today, through strategic exploitation of social media platforms, live-streaming and commercial screen media outlets, the FIFA, BSWW, and the contemporary game continue to gather international momentum. Beach Soccer Histories is the first book to consider the sport as a historical, social, and cultural phenomenon – the first to examine its traditions, its major developments, its influential nations, organisations, and some of those individuals who have made a significant impact. Alongside presentation of the contemporary state of play, the book creates an overarching interwoven narrative of beach soccer’s histories, highlights key issues, discusses established and emergent themes, examines relevant contexts, considers the status of the game at local, national, and international levels, and lays the foundations for further research. The book’s primary objective is to detail and illustrate the historical, social, and organisational development of beach soccer across a period of around 100 years, although in one of the countries we consider, this seems to begin and end in less than 20 years. It takes in international tournaments, national competitions, and teams, and generates new knowledge alongside the uncovering of old. We would note, however, the book is only part of a larger story. Despite the authors’ best efforts, it does not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive set of histories for the sport of beach soccer. It is not a work of sociological, cultural, or anthropological research though there are obvious overlapping connections that could be considered. The book is

4  Beach Soccer Contexts presented in linear historical and geographical narrative form that must be acknowledged as a ‘western’ or globally northern colonial construct, which is used here as a simple mechanism for the organisation of the data and subsequent narrative production. The authorship team is based in Australia: in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland, and Adelaide in South Australia. The first author, Dr Lee McGowan identifies as a white, middle-aged, cisgender man, a Scot, a creative non-fiction writer, and a football histories researcher. The second author, Dr Elizabeth Ellison identifies as a white, cisgender woman, an Australian qualitative researcher of the Australian beach, beach culture and popular texts, and creative non-fiction related to sport and popular culture. The third author, Dr Michele Lastella identifies as a white, cisgender man, of Italian heritage, who specialises in sleep and sport psychology, and is a former elite beach soccer player, which affords the research an uncommon level of close personal insight and authenticity on the game in Australia and related international tournaments in which he participated. We aspire to align our various experiences in beach and sports research in ways that inform our deepening collective understanding and knowledge of football played on sand. We wish to acknowledge the Butchulla, Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi, Jaggera, Turrbal, and Kaurna peoples as the First Nations owners of the lands where this research was and continues to be produced. These lands have always been places of teaching, research, and learning. We recognise these peoples’ continuing connection to land, water, and community, and pay our respect to their Elders, lores, customs and creation spirits. This chapter now offers a brief review of related literature, some discussion on methodological approach, and outline of the chapters that follow. Before the literature can be considered, however, there are a small number of matters to note. The structure and content of the text are presented with the view that women’s sport and women’s sporting stories are interwoven with developments in men’s sport as they are recognised and accounted for in changing patterns of gender relations and their consequent impact on related cultural institutions (Hall, 2016). Wherever possible, we discuss women’s beach soccer as it occurs within historical, regional, and cultural environments, although we would note that the women’s game is comparatively – if not severely – limited by the game’s preoccupation with men’s beach soccer. A situation that mirrors the historical and continuing contestation of women’s rights to control their sports, in this case football in its various forms, as part of often less than supportive football institutions (see, for example, Ordway & Symons, 2023; Tate, 2013; Williams 2003, 2007). This struggle with and for the power to oversee the organisation of a sport is commonplace across women’s sporting activity more generally and of greatest concern where a woman’s participation in a sport is more likely to be bound to her or their sense of identity (Hargreaves, 1994, 2013). Throughout the text we refer to the game formally known as association football, known as soccer in some regions, by its most common nomenclature, ‘football’. We note, irrespective of region, beach soccer is universally referred

Beach Soccer Contexts 5 to as ‘beach soccer’ and follow suit. The reader will encounter a small number of exceptions in the text. For example, in Brazil, the Portuguese term for the sport is, futebol de praia or futebol de areia [football on sand], which is employed in context. In references to and discussion of the sport in US, we will use the common regional term, ‘sand soccer’. Football research is predominantly concerned with the cultural, historical, political, and or social development of the men’s game. To situate beach soccer, and more specifically, the study of its social histories, within the greater landscape of football studies, consideration is now given to women’s and men’s football, including the social and historical, and the limited nature of research related to beach soccer. Football literature The purpose of this brief review is not simply to stand on the shoulders of the many historians, social commentators and football and sports theorists, including for example, Arthur Hopcraft (2013), Brian Glanville (2014), James Walvin (1994), Tony Mason (1981, 1995), Richard Holt (1990), John Bale (2002), David Goldblatt (2006), Adrian Harvey (2013), Roy Hay (2014), Tony Collins (2018), and Brian Bunk (2021), or discuss at length the welldocumented development and contemporary status of men’s football around the world. We can note something of the breadth of the field in the capture and provision of prominent exemplars, such as: Jamie Cleland’s sole authored and co-authored works on sociological issues and constraints within the game (see Cleland, 2015; Cleland et al., 2018, 2021); the work of Dan Parnell and Paul Widdop, who are at the centre of a range of co-authored and coedited works on football related policy, the business of football, and related social and economic networks (see Bond et al., 2020; Chadwick et al., 2019, 2022; Parnell et al., 2018, 2021); the research of Paul Brannagan and his coauthors on mega-events that include the FIFA men’s World Cup, which must be distinguished here as the association football tournament (see Brannagan & Guilianotti 2015; Brannagan et al., 2022; Grix & Brannagan, 2016); John Hughson’s contributions on many aspects of football culture in a range of environments (see Adams & Hughson, 2013; Hallinan & Hughson, 2009; Hughson & Inglis, 2002; Hughson & Free, 2011; and for a broader collection, see Hughson et al., 2017); Joel Rookwood’s research on the game’s power structures (see 2020, 2021) and consideration of the fan experience (Rookwood & Chan, 2011); Richard Guilianotti’s foremost work on fan culture (see 2005, 2013; Guilianotti & Robertson, 2009) and David Rowe and his co-authors on discussions on related sports media culture (see 2003, 2011). Research on women’s football is not as prevalent, but the availability of studies and range of topics highlight an increasing diversity and deepening wealth of knowledge. To demonstrate, we would highlight Sue Bridgewater’s work on participation, attendance, and spectatorship (2018); Hanya Pielichaty’s work on football, family, and gender (2021); Donna de Haan and

6  Beach Soccer Contexts Annalies Knoppers’ collaborative studies on women coaches (see 2020; and Knoppers et al., 2022); and Alex Culvin’s work on professional women players (2019, 2021). As a site of practice and an environment often influenced by broader cultural forces, the football pitch is positioned as a site, for the negotiation of gender and identity in the work of Jayne Caudwell (2011a, 2011b), which enables demonstrations of skill and the exploitation of opportunities to exercise abilities otherwise denied women (Francombe-Webb & Palmer, 2018; Toffoletti et al., 2018), and for participants to challenge socio-historical and socio-cultural perspectives on gender norms and women’s involvement (Mansfield et al., 2018). These works arguably build on foundations for research on social change for women in sport and their histories provided by Jennifer Hargreaves (1994, 2013). There is a growing body of research on women as fans and fan identity construction, including: work by Stacey Pope and Jean Williams’ (2011, 2018); on women fans of men’s football by Gertrude Pfister and Pope (2018; also see Pope, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017); and a range of individual case studies undertaken in specific regions, including Denmark (Lenneis & Pfister, 2015; Mintert & Pfister, 2014; Pfister et al., 2018), England (Dunn, 2016; Pope, 2018), Italy (Cere, 2002, 2012), Poland (Jakubowska et al., 2020), and Turkey (Erhart, 2013). The works of renowned women’s football researcher Jean Williams on a century of the English women’s game (2003, 2017) and the women’s game elsewhere (2007, 2022) provide ground-breaking cultural and historical perspective. Our knowledge of the women’s game prior to and since the 1920s in England is augmented by the work of Alethea Melling (1999a, 1999b, 1999c), David Williamson (1991), Gail Newsham (2014), James Lee (2013), Patrick Brennan (2002, 2007), Sue Lopez (1997), and Tim Tate (2013). Jessica Macbeth (2002, 2004) and Fiona Skillen and her co-authors are amplifying our knowledge of its development in Scotland and neighbouring nations in the same period (see Skillen & Osborne, 2015; Skillen et al., 2022). There are many works on social and historical aspects of the women’s game outside of the birthplace of the modern game, including: Barbara Cox on New Zealand (2010, 2012); Bente Ovèdie Skogvang on Norway (2007, 2019); Helena Byrne on the Republic of Ireland (2017, 2019); and on the women’s game in Brazil (see Costa, 2016; Goellner, 2005; Morel & Salles, 2006; Mourão & Morel, 2005). The earliest developments of the game in Europe are documented by Helge Faller across a range of works detailing fixtures and historical results of women’s football in the Netherlands (2017a), Belgium (2019, 2020, 2022), and France (2017b, 2018). Laurence Prudhomme-Poncet’s work on the women’s game in France offers a broader context (2007). Tim Grainey’s work offers similar insight on the women’s game in the US (2012). In Australia, Marion Stell and Reid (2020), Stell (1991), Rob Hess (2011, 2014), Roy Hay and Bill Murray (2014), Greg Downes (2021; Downes et al., 2015), and Lee McGowan and his co-authors are among those who have developed our knowledge of the game’s social histories there (see for example, Crawford & McGowan, 2019; McGowan, 2019; McGowan & Downes, 2018). A small number of anthologies

Beach Soccer Contexts 7 provide insight on a range of individual countries including, Football and the Boundaries of History: Critical Studies in Soccer (2017) edited by Brenda Elsey and Stanislao G. Pugliese; Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation: Kicking off a New Era (2004) by Fan Hong and James Anthony Mangan features works on women’s football in Canada, China, South Korea, East and West Germany, India, Brazil, and the US; and Women, Football and Europe: Histories, Equity and Experiences (2007) edited by Jonathon Magee, Jayne Caudwell, Katie Liston and Sheila Scraton, offers insight on the game in France, Spain, England, and Scotland. Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel text, Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America offers a view across a larger geographical region (2019). Women’s Football in Oceania offers a range of histories across the continent (McGowan et al., 2023). Beach soccer is regarded as one of the world’s fastest growing sports (Muazu Musa et al., 2020). Like football and its other forms or variants, Futsal for example, beach soccer is classified as an invasion sport (Leite & Barreira, 2014). Football and football-like team sports have common characteristics; there are similarities in the types of studies related to men’s football and men’s beach soccer. The key differences would be volume or breadth of topic. There are very few studies on the historical, social, economic, or cultural aspects of beach soccer, on its development, its contemporary status, its competitions, its power structures, related gender issues or its fan base. There are comparatively fewer instances of research specifically related to women’s beach soccer. Research on the beach is also relatively limited (see for example, Corbin, 1994; Ellison, 2020; Ellison & Hawkes, 2016). Where we have dedicated the remainder of this text to the histories of one sport played on sand, we have elected to provide a chapter that contextualises theoretical frameworks and studies related to the beach. We therefore move to unpack existing academic research related to beach soccer. Beach soccer literature The relative scarcity of material and a lack of academic scrutiny ensure that any review of beach soccer literature will be brief. We offer an overview here and continue to review related works across the book. Research on beach soccer can be characterised into two broad categories: those fields that might be described as: (1) technical analysis and or sports science research appertaining to beach soccer, including what might be described as a subcategory related to performance; and an even narrower body of research we would describe as: (2) the cultural, social, and historical aspects of beach soccer. Technical analysis and or sports science research related to beach soccer tends to reflect two key aspects of the sport: (a) the well-being or health and fitness of participants; and (b) analysis of match play and outcomes. A contextual review of current academic research related to participant well-being highlights work on heart rate and motion analysis (Castellano & Casamichana, 2010; Scarfone et al., 2015), training load (Costa et al., 2022), heat stress

8  Beach Soccer Contexts (Marquez et al., 2016a), occurrence of injuries over a sustained period (Lima & Bayraktar, 2022), injuries in players who are men (Sharifatpour et al., 2020) and at specific tournaments (Lastella et al., 2020; Sharifatpour et al., 2018; Shimakawa et al., 2016). There are studies on the planning of medical care of tournament participants (Marquez et al., 2016b) and the physiological demands of players (Castellano & Casamichana, 2010; Fazolo et al., 2005; Scarfone & Ammendolia, 2017). There are also comparative studies related to performance, including: noting the differences between beach soccer teams and other forms of football (Dansu, 2016; Leite & Barreira, 2014); the differing physical capacities required to play on grass and sand (Larsen et al., 2021); and more specific elements of performance in examining divergences in the isokinetic knee muscle strength profiles of men playing football and footballlike sports (de Lira et al., 2017). A contextual review of academic research focusing on game analysis and management, highlights studies on goals scored and their impact on match outcomes (see, Aquino et al., 2022; Lastella et al., 2020; Passos et al., 2021), goal scoring strategies observed during matches (Leite, 2016), and technical and tactical performance indicators (Muazu Musa et al., 2019, 2020; Musa et al., 2021). These studies provide coaches and performance analysts practical insight on goal scoring strategies that facilitate optimal tactical preparation. We know for example that most goals are scored in the final (third) period of play; scoring the first goal of the game increases a team’s winning probability to 60% (Leite, 2016); analysis and evaluation enables calculation of the impact of tactical performance indicators such as shots from the back, middle, and front third of the field as well as complete and incomplete saves associated with winning and losing teams (Muazu Musa et al., 2019). While these studies are valuable in terms of match play, they are not the focus of this study. The earliest academic research on cultural, social, and historical aspects of beach soccer we now know of focuses on the game’s emergence in the city of Santos, Brazil (Nori, 1998). More recent works also focus on the Brazilian game. They include: an examination of the clash of beach and football cultures on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro (Donadio, 2011); an individual case study of a group of men (over 40 years) who play in São Pedro da Aldeia (Rio de Janeiro) (Oliveira & Osborne, 2018); and some notation amid the historical insight offered on Brazilian women’s football (Costa, 2016) and on a specific club (Soares de Almeida, 2014). A rare instance focuses on women’s beach soccer (Morel & Salles, 2006). Outside of Brazil, the limited works available include a study on the characteristics of Portuguese beach soccer players (Ferreira, 2017) and the sport’s development in Australia (McGowan et al., 2020a, 2020b). The primary aim of this study is to produce a narrative-based collection of social histories of beach soccer as an internationally competitive sport. Given the consideration of football and the relative scarcity of research on beach soccer, it is clear there are a significant number of aspects of the sport worthy of further study. This book establishes a narrative foundation for the development of beach soccer research.

Beach Soccer Contexts 9 Approach Beach Soccer Histories gathers, documents, and connects elements and ephemera through overlapping and complementary qualitative methods of approach, particularly those related to oral history research including extensive archival research and semi-structured interviews, and textual and thematic analyses. Throughout its production, the authorship team have been acutely aware that there is still much to do and learn. The book builds on research published previously by its authors who are among the few academics to explore the game’s origins, competing interests and histories or its presence in a given region, in this case, Australia (McGowan et al., 2020a, 2020b). The book combines collated academic research, limited knowledges of a sporting heritage, the practices of oral history research and sports writing research to consider the social, cultural, and historical development of beach soccer and the factors that inform and influence the contemporary game. Materials will be drawn from existing archives, including newspaper reports, press releases, websites, and photo collections, such as the work of Brazilian photographer Thomas Farkas in the late 1940s. Records of participation, competitions, and the game’s often disparate development across continents and much of its history have led to sometimes sparse and poor archival records. While inaccuracies may appear, the authorial team have navigated these issues with a meticulous approach to detail, the application of concerted collective effort to ensure the works’ abiding veracity, and through consultation with a broad network of those involved in the sport. We used overlapping and complementary qualitative methods of data gathering and prepared to collect data wherever opportunities arose (Patton, 2014; Silverman, 2006). We employed those methods related to oral history research (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011) particularly where the work relates to football histories (see for example, McGowan et al., 2023; Skillen & Osborne, 2015), and includes extensive archival research (see Klaebe & Van Luyn, 2014), and semi-structured interviews (De Jonckheere & Vaughn, 2019). We drew on and analysed sports writing (Fensch, 2013; Rowe, 1992), informal coverage, particularly the practice of online sports writing categorised as creative non-fiction (Symons et al., 2022), which remain the most common form of work related to beach soccer. We adopted and adapted the model applied in Helena Byrne’s study of women’s football in Drogheda, Ireland, which interrogates the use of digital resources, such as social media and its related platforms, Facebook groups for example, in search of leads and previously unconsidered resources (Byrne, 2019). In keeping with oral history processes, we approached our interviews as a means to afford interviewees opportunities to guide the work (Leavy, 2011), and the researchers/interviewers the capacity to situate the personal experiences recounted within the overarching historical context (see Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011). We met with different actors related to beach soccer in structured or non-structured beach soccer settings, including members of international, national, regional, and local beach soccer organisations such as administrators,

10  Beach Soccer Contexts coaches, players, fans, so that the exploration of the beach soccer would be enhanced (Patton, 2014). These interviews employed appropriate strategies to enable respectful communication with Indigenous communities and consisted of interviewing beach soccer community members and industry-based employees and practitioners. One of the book’s authors provided recollections and invaluable insight from his time as a member of the Australian National Beach Soccer team. These interviews enabled the gathering of qualitative, open-ended data in an exploration that contributes insight into beach soccer community practitioners’ and experts’ thoughts and feelings about the focal point of the study (De Jonckheere & Vaughn, 2019). We applied the tenets of textual analysis (see Belsey, 2022; Hartley, 1999; McKee, 2011) and thematic analyses (see Joffe & Yardley, 2004) to interrogate the work and draw out discussion and findings before organising and presenting the parts as a cohesive narrative. While the project has the full support of leading members of beach soccer communities, the authors take full responsibility for any errors. Where we endeavour to frame an important historical sporting narrative such as beach soccer’s histories, which touch on site-specific, social, and cultural issues several challenges must be acknowledged. The research team are predominantly English speakers. We do not speak or read Bislama (Vanuatu), French (Tahiti, Vanuatu), or Pijin (Solomon Islands). Our ability to engage with potential participants and gather archival data during our investigations was therefore curtailed in some countries. Where the game’s origins are based in Brazil and subsequently captured in Portuguese this has impacted our capacity to access the material. We were fortunate enough to engage Arthur Passos, a Portuguese speaking researcher, to support aspects of the work. Researching beach soccer from social and historical perspectives is limited by access to source materials held by organisations that continue to experience substantive change. A focus on playing and building the game has impacted records of and access to working knowledges of social and cultural aspects of its development. This text attempts to address the fragmentary nature of existing knowledge and pursues connection of ‘old’ and ‘new’ knowledges across formal and informal beach soccer communities, the employment of a methodological approach is unavoidably problematic. However, this book does represent the first most comprehensive mapping and analysis of this internationally competitive sport to date. Chapters Beach soccer, as we know the game today, emerged and took its first bicycle kicks towards international competition on the coastal shores of Brazil. Through the early 1990s the sport became popular in California, Florida, and Virginia in the US and in Southern Europe, in France, Portugal, and Spain. In the last decade the sport has expanded rapidly in Africa where national teams, such as Ghana and Senegal, now stand out on the international stage. A recent study of women’s football in Oceania touches on growing interest and participation across the region (McGowan et al., 2023). These latter examples speak

Beach Soccer Contexts 11 to notions of engagement with the game wherever beach culture is prevalent. In more recent decades, however, the game has become popular in parts of the world not known for their beach culture, such as Paraguay, Russia, and Switzerland, while Australia – known throughout the world for its prominent beach culture – offers a very different perspective. Before we consider the sport, we must consider its location. The historical context of the sport is embedded with the location on which it emerged. Beaches are coastal perimeters, national boundaries, sites of colonial invasion, and images on postcards. While it is not possible to identify a homogenous beach culture across the world, there are shared contexts that should be considered where we are to situate the history of beach soccer. Chapter 2: The Beach, More Than a Pitch, therefore, examines the complexities of beaches as conceptual site, one that acts as space for leisure, culture, and history; for class struggle, colonial invasion, tourism; and for the tensions between leisure and elite competitive sport. It briefly threads cultural discussions of beaches with nature-based, lifestyle sports to contextualise the role the beach plays as site in understanding beach soccer. In building a cohesive frame within which to discuss beach soccer’s development, Chapter 3: Beach Soccer Histories, reviews the sport from its origins to its contemporary professional form. It considers the ways beach soccer’s place on sporting calendars reflects its vibrant development in the early parts of the twenty-first century, which itself belies a much longer, richer set of related sporting histories. Chapter 3 provides a broad and necessarily brief linear narrative that contextualises beach soccer histories within the landscape of international beach soccer. The chapter maps and briefly outlines some of the histories explored in more detail in the chapters that follow, including the game in Brazil, beach soccer’s unique place in the US in the 1990s and early part of the twenty-first century, its concurrent celebrity endorsed emergence in southern Europe, and the relatively recent development of the sport’s key organisations, BSWW and FIFA, and their contemporary competitions and tournaments. Beach Soccer, or futebol de praia, originated in Rio de Janeiro, its spiritual home, in the early 1920s, when the Cariocas moved their recreational pursuits to the city’s beaches, which were open and free, and commonly used for exercise and social participation. Beach soccer’s emergence is likely the result of good weather, the nation’s obsession with football, free space, and the beach cultures that emerged after the First World War, such as sunbathing. In Chapter 4: Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994, we consider futebol de praia’s initiation, its development from the 1930s, the establishment of clubs and formalised local competitions in the 1950s, and the arrival of commercialised ventures in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s. Before its close, the chapter touches on the sport’s continued popularity on the Copacabana, and the dominance of the Brazilian women and men’s national beach soccer teams on the international stage. In the US, beach soccer offers a remarkable view of a football related sport that has developed largely outside of FIFA’s influence. The national men’s and

12  Beach Soccer Contexts women’s US beach soccer teams participate in BSWW organised, FIFA endorsed, tournaments, but there are community and commercial competitions that occur annually that have little contact with the national governing body, the United States Soccer Federation (USSF or US Soccer). Chapter 5: Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 examines beach soccer’s development within the troubled context of soccer as a sport in the US. The emergence and evolution of a diverse range of models of approach to beach soccer tournaments from localised community engagement competitions to the professional circuit that spans large parts of the country. Australia has a complex relationship with its beaches, its regional neighbours, and the game of football, despite a significantly lengthy history with the sport. Football, at grassroots level, boasts Australia’s highest levels of participation. The continental island’s national identity is intrinsically tied to sporting success and beach culture. Beach soccer should be successful and popular. Yet, the game is largely absent from Australian shores, and not for a lack of effort has failed to find stable levels of engagement, let alone secure media attention, requisite funding, and the necessary factors for sustainability. Chapter 6: Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 examines an example of beach soccer’s failure to realise and or maintain a greater presence on the beaches of a self-proclaimed sporting nation that also as openly and often insensitively celebrates its dynamic beach culture. It is said that the footballers in the Pacific Islands are born to sand. Certainly, beach soccer is regarded as a growth sport and, at the same time, a sport with some longevity. We employ the term Pacific Islands here to refer to the small island developing states in Oceania regarded as part of the Global South where the number of participating nations, states, territories, and sovereignties is comparatively remarkable. Of the 11 members of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), the continental governing body, eight have supported men’s national teams to participate in the regional FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers, the OFC Beach Nations Cup between 2006 and 2017. Although never in the same competition, teams from the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tonga, and Vanuatu have entered the competition. Solomon Islands are the only team to compete in each edition. Tahiti (French Polynesia) have challenged for World Cup medals with the best in the world; they are current reigning OFC champions. These teams and the sport’s growth are discussed in more detail in Chapter 8: Beach Soccer in Solomon Islands and Tahiti 2006–2021. Across these chapters we examine beach soccer’s growth and development and consider some of its struggles, particularly those that define how its past and present are viewed. We discuss reasons to be optimistic about its future and identify and highlight matters for further research. Conclusion Beach soccer follows similar principles to its, most often turf-based, paternal sporting code, but is distinguished from association football by a range of factors, including its country of origin, its commercial development, and those nations

Beach Soccer Contexts 13 that have achieved success, particularly those that would not meet with similar success in football. Participation requires constant departure from the general physical approaches to football on grass, making it something of an exception among the code’s variations. Its short games, rapid pace, and frequent acrobatic physicality can make for dynamic screen media content, a boon for tournament organisers looking to attract sponsorship, promotion, and dissemination. Football is governed by FIFA, through their regional members who govern their member associations. World football’s governing body administers the biennial beach soccer World Cup and brand its qualifiers, but they are administered by BSWW who are responsible for administrative, organisational, and commercial activities related to the game’s many other aspects. In the US there are myriad tournaments and competitions and no single overarching governing body for the organisation of beach soccer. The US women and men’s teams compete in BSWW and FIFA tournaments, but those organisations have little influence over the game there. There are other similarities and divergences between beach soccer as a form and football. Football research is plentiful where it is concerned with the men’s game. Men’s beach soccer has until recently been the primary concern of the sport, but as they are in football, things are changing in beach soccer. While we do not have a women’s beach soccer World Cup as yet, it is clear the game is developing toward its realisation. The Intercontinental Cup is a close approximation. In gathering materials, connecting with individuals and organisations, and reviewing existing data, the rest of the book examines the sport’s growth, its social histories, and its contemporary reach. We reflect on beach soccer’s origins, critical historical developments, contentions within the sport, and the rise of BSWW and FIFA’s impact and influence. In the following chapters, consideration is given to women and men’s games as they offer a study of beach soccer within the greater landscape of football studies. References Adams, I., & Hughson, J. (2013). ‘The first ever anti-football painting’? A consideration of the soccer match in John Singer Sargent’s Gassed. Soccer & Society, 14(4), 502–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2013.810433 Aquino, R., Malias, B., Soares, F., Macedo, P., Silva Netto, V. D., Kalva-Filho, C. A., Motta, F. B., Machado, J. C., da Costa, R. V. F., & Clemente, F. M. (2022). Analysis of goal scoring patterns and match outcome during the Intercontinental Beach Soccer Cup Dubai 2019. Motriz: Revista de Educação Física, 28. https://doi.org/ 10.1590/S1980-657420220020121 Bale, J. (2002). Imagined Olympians: Body culture and colonial representation in Rwanda (Vol. 3). University of Minnesota Press. beachsoccer.com. (n.d.). Laws of the game. Beach Soccer Worldwide. https://beachsoccer. com/laws-of-the-game Belsey, C. (2022). Textual analysis as a research method. In Griffin, G. (Ed.) Research methods for English studies (pp. 160–178). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi. org/10.1515/9780748683444-010

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20  Beach Soccer Contexts sports: Performance analysis and talent identification in beach soccer & Sepak-takraw (pp. 13–19). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3219-1_2 Musa, R. M., Abdul Majeed, A. P. P., Musa, A., Abdullah, M. R., Kosni, N. A., & Razman, M. A. M. (2021). An information gain and hierarchical agglomerative clustering analysis in identifying key performance parameters in elite beach soccer. In Zakaria, M., Abdul Majeed, A., Hassan, M. (Eds.) Advances in mechatronics, manufacturing, and mechanical engineering (pp 269–275). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-981-15-7309-5_26 Newsham, G. (2014). In a league of their own. The dick, Kerr ladies 1917–1965. Paragon Publishing. Nori, C. (1998). Sport as a manifestation of culture and citizenship: Beach soccer in Santos. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação Física), Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas. https://repositorioslatinoamericanos.uchile.cl/handle/2250/1312728 Oliveira, A. de B., & Osborne, R. (2018). “Deixa Amor”: A Cultura do Futebol de Praia na Perspectiva de um Grupo de Lazer. [“Leave Love”: The Culture of Beach Soccer from the Perspective of a Leisure Group]. LICERE – Revista Do Programa De Pós-graduação Interdisciplinar Em Estudos Do Lazer, 21(3), 1–27. https://doi. org/10.35699/1981-3171.2018.1861 Ordway, C., & Symons, K. (2023). It doesn’t happen by magic: creatively exploring the process of changemaking in sport through – Moya Dodd and FIFA. In L. McGowan, & K. Symons (Eds.), Intersections of Sport and Society in creative writing (pp. 177–196). Springer. Parnell, D., Bond, A. J., Widdop, P., & Cockayne, D. (2021). Football Worlds: Business and networks during COVID-19. Soccer & Society, 22(1–2), 19–26. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2020.1782719 Parnell, D., Widdop, P., Groom, R., & Bond, A. (2018). The emergence of the sporting director role in football and the potential of social network theory in future research. Managing Sport and Leisure, 23(4–6), 242–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 23750472.2018.1577587 Passos, L. E., Balogh, L., & Pucsok, J. M. (2021). A study on the incidence of goals and the relationship between scoring the first goal and winning the match in the Hungarian beach soccer championship. Stadium-Hungarian Journal of Sport Sciences, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.36439/shjs/2021/2/10559 Patton, M. Q. (2014). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (4th ed.). Sage (Original work published 1980). Pfister, G. U., Mintert, S.-M., & Lenneis, V. (2018). ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a fan’: The socialization of female football fans—A case study in Denmark. In G. Pfister & S. Pope (Eds.), Female football players and fans: Intruding into a Man’s World (pp. 211–240). Palgrave Macmillan. Football Research in an Enlarged Europe https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59025-1_10 Pfister, G., & Pope, S. (Eds.). (2018). Female football players and fans: Intruding into a man’s world. Palgrave Macmillan. Pielichaty, H. (2021). Football, family, gender and identity: The football self. Routledge. Pope, S. (2013). “The Love of my Life” The meaning and importance of sport for female fans. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 37(2), 176–195. https://doi. org/10.1177/019372351245591 Pope, S. (2014). Female football fans and gender performance. In J. Hargreaves, & E. Anderson (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sport, gender and sexuality (pp. 265–273). Routledge.

Beach Soccer Contexts 21 Pope, S. (2016). Female fans of Men’s football. In J. Hughson, J. Maguire, K. Moore, & R. Spaaij (Eds.), Routledge handbook of football studies (pp. 325–336). Routledge. Pope, S. (2017). The feminization of sports fandom: A sociological study. Routledge. Pope, S. (2018). Who could name an England Women’s footballer?’: Female fans of Men’s football and their views of Women’s football in England. In G. Pfister, & S. Pope (Eds.), Female football players and fans: Intruding into a Man’s world (pp. 125–153). Palgrave MacMillan. Pope, S., & Williams, J. (2011). “White shoes to a football match!”: Female experiences of football’s golden age in England. Transformative Works and Cultures, 6. http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/230/204 Pope, S., & Williams, J. (2018). A socio-historical account of female experiences of Football’s golden age in England. In G. Pfister, & S. Pope (Eds.), Female football players and fans: Intruding into a Man’s World (pp. 157–184). Palgrave MacMillan. Prudhomme-Poncet, L. (2007). Les femmes, Balle au Pied – A history of French women’s football. In J. Magee, J. Caudwell, K. Liston, & S. Scraton (Eds.), Women, football and Europe: Histories, equity and experiences (pp. 27–39). Meyer and Meyer Sport. Rookwood, J. (2020). The politics of ConIFA: Organising and managing international football events for unrecognised countries. Managing Sport and Leisure, 25(1–2), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2019.1645616 Rookwood, J. (2021). Diversifying the fan experience and securitising crowd management: A longitudinal analysis of fan park facilities at 15 football mega events between 2002 and 2019. Managing Sport and Leisure, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 23750472.2021.1985596 Rookwood, J., & Chan, N. (2011). The 39th game: Fan responses to the premier league’s proposal to globalize the English game. Soccer & Society, 12(6), 897–913. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2011.609688 Rowe, D. (1992). Modes of sports writing. In P. Dahlgren, & C. Sparks (Eds.), Journalism and popular culture (pp. 96–112). Sage. Rowe, D. (2003). Sport, culture and the media. McGraw-Hill Education. Rowe, D. (2011). Global media sport: Flows, forms and futures. A&C Black. Scarfone, R., Tessitore, A., Minganti, C., Caprianica, L., & Ammedolia, A. (2015). Match analysis heart-rate and CMJ of beach soccer players during amateur competition. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 15(1), 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/24748668.2015.11868790 Scarfone, R., & Ammendolia, A. (2017). Match analysis of an elite beach soccer team. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 57(7–8), 953–959. https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27763581/ Sealy, W. (2018). From colonialism to transnationalism: The neo-colonial structure of Caribbean tourism (pp. 81–92). http://www.ontourism.online/index.php/jots/ article/view/30 Sharifatpour, R., Akoochakian, M., Alizadeh, M. H., & Abbasi, H. (2020). Prevalence and mechanism of injuries in male beach soccer player. Community Health Research, 9(3), 184–190. https://doi.org/10.18502/jchr.v9i3.4261 Sharifatpour, R., Abbasi, H., & Ebadi Asl, H. (2018). The prevalence and mechanisms of injuries in male professional beach soccer players in Yazd province. Journal of Advanced Pharmacy Education & Research, Oct–Dec, 8(S2). https://japer.in/ storage/models/article/LYuiUwK1wFDTlYuhMDWKaNPufOQExPTW88Ru9JbHqjCBRmQEwc2Y8Yw8BmsB/the-prevalence-and-mechanisms-of-injuriesin-male-professional-beach-soccer-players-in-yazd-provin.pdf

22  Beach Soccer Contexts Shimakawa, T., Shimakawa, Y., Kawasoe, Y., Yoshimura, K., Chinen, Y., Eimon, K., Chibana, W., Shirota, S., Kadekawa, K., Bahr, R., Uezato, T., & Ikeda, H. (2016). Beach soccer injuries during the Japanese National Championships. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2325967115625636 Silverman, D. (2006). Interpretative qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text and interaction (3rd ed.). Sage (Original work published 1994). Skillen, F., Byrne, H., Carrier, J., & Gary, J. (2022). ‘The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged’: A comparative analysis of the 1921 English Football Association ban on women’s Football in Britain and Ireland. Sport in History, 42(1), 49–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2021. 2025415 Skillen, F., & Osborne, C. (2015). It’s good to talk: Oral history, sports history and heritage. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(15), 1883–1898. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2015.1132204 Skogvang, B. O. (2007). The historical development of women’s football in Norway: From ‘Show Games’ to International Successes. In J. Magee, J. Caudwell, K. Liston, & S. Scraton (Eds.), Women, Football and Europe: Histories, equity and experiences (pp. 41–54). Meyer and Meyer Sport. Skogvang, B. O. (2019). Scandinavian women’s football: The importance of male and female pioneers in the development of the sport. Sport in History, 39(2), 207–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2019.1618389 Soares de Almeida, C. (2014). O Clube da Rua Mascarenhas de Morais: Memórias do Futebol de Mulheres em Copacabana. (trans. The Mascarenhas de Morais Street Club: Memories of Women’s Football in Copacabana), Ponto Urbe, 14. https://doi. org/10.4000/pontourbe.1433 Stell, M. (1991). Half the race: A history of Australian women in sport. Angus & Robertson. Stell, M., & Reid, H. (2020). Women in boots: Women in boots: Football and feminism in the 1970s. Arcadia. Symons, K., McGowan, L., & Hickling, A. (2022). Introduction: Creative writing and sport. TEXT, 26(Special 67), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.37817 Tate, T. (2013). Girls with balls: The secret history of Women’s football. John Blake. Toffoletti, K., Francombe-Webb, J., & Thorpe, H. (2018). Femininities, sport and physical culture in postfeminist, neoliberal times. In K. Toffoletti, J. Francombe-Webb, & H. Thorpe (Eds.), New sporting femininities: Embodied politics in postfeminist times (pp. 1–19). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72481-2_1 Walvin, J. (1994). The people’s game: A social history of British football (2nd ed.). Mainstream (Original work published 1975). Williams, J. (2003). A game for rough girls: A history of women’s football in Britain. Routledge. Williams, J. (2007). A beautiful game: International perspectives on women’s football. Berg. Williams, J. (2017). Standing on Honeyball’s shoulders: A history of independent women’s football clubs in England. In B. Elsey & S. G. Pugliese (Eds.), Football and the boundaries of history: Critical studies in soccer (pp. 227–245). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95006-5_12 Williamson, D. J. (1991). Belles of the ball: The early history of women football. R&D Associates.

Chapter Two The Beach: More Than a Pitch

The beach The beach forms a coastal perimeter, a boundary, a key location for leisure and pleasure for those majority of nations noted and discussed in this text. In the same way the beach is a metonym for popular activities – swimming, fishing, sun-bathing – associated with the seaside (see Corbin, 1994; White, 2009), specific beaches are metonyms for more than activities in a location; Venice beach, the Copacabana, and Bondi Beach have come to symbolise the most renowned, eccentric, sun-soaked, vibrant, or laidback aspects of their respective national identities and cultures. However we choose to describe those spaces, they are active spaces (Massey, 2005), spaces transformed, spaces with history (Carter, 1987). Each one carries rich histories, they are immersed in their own cultural complexities of egalitarianism, colonialism, and sporting tradition – including hosting iconic sporting events and competitions. In many Pacific Island nations, such as the Cook Islands and Tuvalu, beaches are at the forefront of the climate crises (Holdaway et al., 2021). In Australia, the beach is celebrated as a symbol of Anglo-Australian culture, by Anglo-Australians, but they are sites of colonisation, struggle, and significant bloodshed (see Cathcart, 2009). Beaches are frequently dismissed as hedonistic, places of low importance, somewhere to detach from the quotidian, with little relevance to culture or national identity. And yet, it is clear from the pervasive presence of the beach in tourism, advertising, and popular representation there is deep significance attributed to the beach as place, one that links global audiences to local landscapes and takes on meaning beyond that of a single country. As the subject of academic research, the beach as place attracts minimal scrutiny (Ellison & Brien, 2020). It is therefore important to contextualise the primary site of beach soccer. This chapter will provide an overview of cultural contexts related to beaches, examine the role of colonialism, and consider the beach as a location for leisurely pursuit before unpacking the beach as a sporting environment. The term ‘beach’ refers to the sandy strip of coastline that acts as the space between land and ocean. Geographically, beaches feature sand (perhaps of varying consistency and appearance) and bleed directly into water, whether that is river, sea, or ocean. A beach is distinct to other forms of land borders, such DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-2

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as cliff faces. The beach can often be considered as a conceptual whole. For instance, in Australia, it is possible (although not unproblematic) to consider a homogenous ‘Australian beach’ landscape that is recognisable in advertising, postcards, and cultural texts (Ellison & Hawkes, 2016). Of course, a singular beach can also become representative of cultural identity. Within Australia, Bondi Beach’s iconic geographical shape, pavilion, and even the local lifeguard service (popularised in international television export Bondi Rescue (Davies, 2006–present), means this specific beach is incredibly recognisable. Similarly, Santa Monica Beach in the United States is its own cultural site of significance and captured on screen numerous times. Of course, the level of interest in particular, recognisable, iconic beaches comes with disadvantages. This is perhaps most evident in Maya Bay, located at Phi Phi Le Island in Thailand’s Krabi province – the picturesque beach with its monolithic rock features was the setting for the commercially successful film, The Beach (Boyle, 2000), starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In response to concerns of ‘over-tourism’ and the related degradation of marine ecosystems (Koh & Fakfare, 2019, p. 285), the area was closed for four months in 2018 for local stakeholders to devise strategies to safeguard the site, which included limiting visitors. The landscape type of the beach is understood across countries and cultures and associated with similar modes of use (e.g., sunbaking, swimming, sports), albeit with local distinctions being influenced by weather, history, and topography. Beaches can look and function quite differently depending on their location. A sociological analysis of Australian coasts included categorisation of types and differentiated between ‘lifestyle’ and ‘adventure’ coasts (Osbaldiston, 2018, pp. 239–241). It would be remiss not to note that all beaches – including many in the countries championing beach soccer across the world – face immediate threats from our changing climate. Each of Tuvalu’s nine low-lying islands are positioned less than 4.5 metres above sea-level. The Pacific Islands’ nation is at the centre of anthropogenic climate crises. Tuvaluans are directly affected by rising sea-levels (Roy, 2019), coastal erosion and soil salination (Campbell, 2014), and food security challenges (Sisifa et al., 2016), which will soon displace this small nation’s peoples making them the world’s first climate refugees (see for example, Holdaway et al., 2021; Marino & Lazrus, 2015; Todorova & Burnie, 2016). All discussions of planning, development, and the use of coasts and beaches (see for example, De Scally & Doberstein, 2022; Sisifa et al., 2016) must now consider the current and imminent major impacts of the climate and the vulnerabilities facing these landscapes. Tensions emerge when beaches are considered as both monolithic representatives of national culture as well as individual, localised sites. This has some resonance with beach soccer. The overarching sport is inherently linked to beaches, and yet as the following chapters illustrate, the game has a complex history with layered cultural developments across different parts of the world. Interestingly, countries for which the beach appears to contribute to cultural identity – for instance, Australia, Brazil, and Portugal – are by no means the only countries that have adopted beach soccer. In fact, a small number of

The Beach, More Than a Pitch 25 teams that have performed well in international beach soccer tournaments more closely align with association football histories than any beach culture. While Russia has beaches, the three-time FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup winner is not well known for its coastal resorts. Landlocked Paraguay was the first coastless nation to host FIFA’s most prestigious men’s beach soccer tournament. Paraguay and another landlocked nation, Switzerland, a country better known for its lakeside resort culture, support international women’s beach soccer teams; in fact, the Swiss women’s international beach soccer team, initiated in 2009, is likely one of the first women’s teams. However, before delving into the history of beach soccer and its varying threads of development, it is useful to understand the tensions inherent to beach sites. The beach as a site of conflict Firstly, it is important to recognise that beach landscapes can, and should, be considered in more complex ways than merely beautiful destinations for holidays. Beaches act as coastal borders and boundaries, and there is an underlying danger present in many beaches around the world. In many countries invaded by colonial forces throughout history, beaches were often the first site of contact between First Nations people and colonisers. There are countless examples of this contact being violent and destructive. This continues to complicate notions of ‘ownership’ in some parts of the world. Suvendrini Perera (2009) identifies the ways in which beaches act as borders in Australia, suggesting the island nation is insular because of the geographic boundary the ocean creates. Australia’s identity is interwoven with the geography of the coastline, and we romanticise beaches to our own peril. As Perera suggests, in comparison to the ‘asocial world of the European beach fantasy’ (2009, p. 138), the beach in Australia is political and cannot be sequestered from that. It is ‘both the original scene of invasion and the ultimate border, a site of ongoing racial demarcation and exclusion, as of endless vigilance and fear’ (Perera, 2009, p. 138). For Australia, a country yet to reckon with its violent and destructive white settlement, beaches are perceived as sites of idyllic, touristic landscape or as places of everyday activity for locals. Australian beaches are (broadly speaking) considered federally owned public spaces – similar to national parks – and usually not eligible as part of a Native Title claim. Practically, beaches are maintained by local governments. This practice is steeped in colonialism: take, for instance, the case of Noosa Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Noosa Shire Council has had a long, complex relationship with developing, protecting, and maintaining the now iconic Noosa Beach often at significant cost to the council itself and local taxpayers (Osbaldiston, 2018). The Council view the investment as central to their strategies to maintain the beach, their view of the beach however emerges from idealised perspectives of what a beach ‘should look like’ and be used for, particularly those imposed coastal lifestyle practices, which are informed by the prevailing Anglo-Australian hegemony (Osbaldiston, 2018, p. 138). Noosa – like many Australian, and in fact global, beaches – struggles

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with its perception as unceded Indigenous land, an idyllic, natural beach, and the commodified, urban lifestyle the contemporary beach brings. The impacts of histories of colonialism on beaches and coastal cities is certainly not unique to Australia. International tourism continues to significantly contribute in equal measure to the national economies of island countries and their neo-colonial subjugation. The domination of transnational and expatriate companies and the precarious seasonal nature of employment of largely unskilled local labour forces literally perpetuates the community’s underdevelopment (Sealy, 2018). The Caribbean archipelago is highlighted as an example of the ways tourism can limit the local community; by restricting access to coastal areas, impacting animal populations, and perpetuating dichotomies between international tourists, and local labour forces (McFarlane-Morris, 2019). As little as a quarter of the beaches on the island of Jamaica, the largest island in the Caribbean, are available for use by the nation’s populous (McFarlane-Morris, 2019). Where tourism plays a major role in generating income and local jobs (Sealy, 2018), this method of denying public access is at odds with the federal government’s own policies that the beaches should be enjoyed by everyone (McFarlane-Morris, 2019), yet it is also clear the same community’s reliance on tourism impacts their decision-making processes. In Australia, there has been a longstanding cultural myth that the beach is a great leveller. In his novel Kangaroo (1923), British author D.H. Lawrence suggests that in comparison to the colonial power of England, Australia was more of a classless society where people were focused on working with a view to holidaying. Certainly, the Australian beach in the latter half of the twentieth century was broadly considered egalitarian. American travel writer Bill Bryson’s observations of Australian society were that its peoples are prosperous, organised, and naturally even-handed (2000). The reality is quite different, and this myth has been challenged since the 1990s (see for example, Ellison, 2013; Fiske et al., 1987; Rickard, 2017). Instead, beaches reveal – and in fact reinforce – class status through clothing choices, access to beach apparatus (e.g., beach chairs or sports equipment), beach locations, and athleticism. It is increasingly possible to identify overt and nuanced hierarchies in beach experiences, which are commonly and frequently determined by travel writers, social media influencers, taste makers, and tourist reviews highlighting distinct beaches, beach activities, and sought-after accommodation styles based on desirability (Kibby, 2020; Razak & Mansor, 2022). Beaches regularly feature in advertising campaigns – often because of their idyllic beauty and the impact of leisure tourism on global economies – and this contributes to certain beaches attaining national and international iconic status. In 2013, Laura Onofri and Paulo Nunes undertook a worldwide empirical analysis of coastal tourism to identify two major tourist demand segments: ‘greens’, tourists with a preference for cultural or natural environments; or ‘beach lovers’, tourists with a preference for specific beach characteristics (length, amenities, climate, and so on). In their examination of the data, they found the countries most visited were the United States, France, Italy, and Spain; tourists stayed longest in the Bahamas, Maldives, and Seychelles; and that the most expensive

The Beach, More Than a Pitch 27 holidays were in the Virgin Islands (Onofri & Nunes, 2013). As noted, the experience of visiting one beach can be very different from visiting another. In Jamaica, beaches are regularly privatised by transnationally owned resorts that offer all-inclusive packages, while Australian beaches remain overwhelmingly free to access. Local accommodations, car parks and or transport options, and surrounding amenities will impact costs and opportunity. Beachfront accommodation tends to be highly sought after, which leads to premium pricing and limited availability. As such, beachfront suburbs are often considered more expensive and gentrified in westernised countries like Australia, the United States, and France. Beaches that are considered high-profile or ‘iconic’ are usually priced accordingly. Beach characteristics and accessibility factor in the generation of hierarchies of desirability and cultural capital in relation to a given beach destination. As Onofri and Nunes note, much tourism – domestic tourism particularly – is motivated by long, sandy beaches (2013). Like many of the observations made on a study that is now a decade old, the long sandy beach has not lost any of its appeal. The popularity of global cultural tourism, however, will continue to be tempered by the implications of climate change as these beach locations are impacted by weather events increasing in frequency and severity and rising sea levels – recent research includes reviews of literature related to tourism services dependent on the management of environmental attributes (Arabadzhyan et al., 2021); the analysis of linkages between climate change and coastal tourism (Pathmanandakumar et al., 2021); and the challenges facing a sustainable tourism sector (Mendoza-González et al., 2018). It is not however the purpose of this book to discuss beach and/or coastal tourism trends, or climate change, nor is it possible to capture the complexities of such nuanced topics within a single chapter. However, it is useful to position the role of coastal cultures within the beach soccer context. The beach as a site for leisure Despite the complexities in beach cultures, particularly those relating to the political, the climate crises, and neo-colonial and historical colonial contexts, beaches are predominantly and recognisably seen as sites of leisure. There is a deep cultural connection in many globally northern countries to summer beach holidays (White, 2009). In the Australian context, the combination of factors – a favourable climate, its geography, their quantity and accessibility, their histories – have blended to augment the capacity and collective inclination of its peoples to respond to the allure of their nation’s beaches (Huntsman, 2001). It may be because beaches – or as they are known in some cultures, the seaside – have long been considered places of healing (Corbin, 1994). Bathing in seawater and being close to fresh air became a well-considered medical therapy in the mid-eighteenth century. Conservative public morality, particularly in countries colonised by the British, was especially disapproving when it came to mixing of the sexes and any hint of public nudity (Huntsman, 2001); however, the connection between the beach or ocean and health was firmly established.

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The Romantic era celebrated wild, natural landscapes like the mountains in Europe and the beach in Australia, because they arouse powerful emotional even religious responses (Ford, 2009); the ability to gaze onto the sea can act as an avenue to a spiritual connection, or transcendence (Ellison, 2013) and within broader considerations of humans’ impact on natural ecosystems this can occur in the pursuit of wellbeing (Olive, 2022). In contrast we must also consider beaches as sites of inherent danger. Every year, there are numerous fatalities at beaches worldwide: drowning, shark or other marine life attacks, jet-ski incidents, paragliding injuries, and fishing accidents are responsible for many moments of loss of life. While beaches internationally have introduced various technological or surveillance interventions in an attempt to curb the risks – lifeguards, cameras, apps to highlight surf conditions, and so on – people still willingly and unwittingly put themselves in danger – coastal drowning has become a global public health problem (Koon et al., 2021; Szpilman et al., 2012). And of course, the threat (or perhaps imagined threat) of sharks ‘generate greater fear in humans (even those of non-maritime cultures) than virtually any other animal species’ (Tiffin, 2009, p. 76). Sharks can be found close to many major beach locations across the world and this juxtaposition – sharks just off the shore from popular tourist locations filled with families – can create a tension regularly played upon in cultural texts (perhaps none more so than Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film, Jaws). Regardless of these dangers, beaches are still heavily frequented and hold significant cultural capital for tourists and the locals that reside there. In fact, beach culture and experiences are often underpinned by a local labour force. Most pronounced in beach resorts or pay for access beaches, visitors to the beach become guests paying for the privilege of food and drinks delivered to a sun lounge complete with towel. For many small islands such as those in the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, or the Perhentian Islands, off the east coast of Malaysia, tourism can account for substantial contributions to the local economy (Hamzah & Hampton, 2013). Their beaches are reliant on mostly local workers catering to foreign tourists (see Neef, 2021). However, even lifeguards can contribute to this dichotomy of pleasure and labour (Booth, 2004). For instance, many of Australia’s beaches are peopled by paid lifeguards, or volunteer lifesavers, for up to twelve hours a day in the height of summer (Hall & Innes, 2008). This has been known to create tension between locals and visitors (either domestic or international) (Booth, 2004), which can create challenges around how sporting events are placed on beach sites. While many people visiting beaches are intentionally looking to relax and ‘get away’ (White, 2009), competitive sports change the dynamic. The beach as a site for sporting activity Sport on beaches speaks to the dichotomy of beaches as sites of leisure and labour. In the later part of the twentieth century there was a turn toward institutionalising many sporting activities that were once traditionally considered lifestyle

The Beach, More Than a Pitch 29 or leisure experiences. Rebecca Olive and Belinda Wheaton highlight sports that occur within oceanic ‘blue spaces’ – waterscapes and their surroundings; they include beachcombing, diving, the range of forms of fishing, paddling, the variety of forms of sailing, surf sports and rescues, ocean and wild swimming, tourism, and walking (2021). Academic research regarding recreational sports or adventurous activities variably uses terminology like ‘lifestyle sports’ (Wheaton, 2013) or nature-based sport (Humberstone, 2011). In a special issue of the Journal of Sport and Social Issues titled Understanding Blue Spaces: Sport, Bodies, Wellbeing, and the Sea (2021) focusing on experiences of sports within blue spaces, Olive and Wheaton employ a broad definition of sports as ‘includ[ing] recreational and less-organised physical cultures and leisure activities’ (p. 4), as well as the more commonly accepted institutionalised forms of sport and physical activity. Nature-based sports that occur on and near beaches, like surfing and ocean swimming, bring participants into close encounters with our ecological environment. While much research exists on the health benefits that nature-based activity can offer (see, for example, Lloret et al., 2021; Wheaton et al., 2017, 2021), Olive suggests we are experiencing a shift away from participation as a means of asserting authority over our environment and taking greater care to build awareness and richer ‘ecological connections’ (Olive, 2022, p. 2). Considering the impact climate crises have already had on coastal landscapes and the associated local communities, it is arguably more important than ever to consider the relationship that naturebased sports – including sports occurring on beaches – have with their environments (Olive, 2022). Recreational activity that occurs on or around beaches is often considered within the umbrella of ‘lifestyle sports’ (Wheaton, 2004, 2013). While Wheaton notes application of the term ‘lifestyle sports’ can be complex, it is possible to consider these sports as those that perhaps sit outside mainstream or traditional sporting cultures, emphasising, among other factors, the ‘creative, aesthetic and performative expressions of their activities’ (2013, p. 29). Many nature-based sports can be recreational and competitive in nature, we would include beach soccer here. Social beach soccer can and does occur regularly on many beaches across the world. Its origins on the Copacabana were social in intent (Donadio, 2011; see Chapter 4). However, the elite beach soccer that grew out of the social game – according to Wheaton’s definitions – with its team-based approach and national subcultural affiliation is more aligned with traditional sporting culture than that of lifestyle sports (2013). One study on kitesurfing on the northeastern coast of Brazil situates modern sporting use of the beach as a form of maritime recreation (Pereira & Dantas, 2019). The study appears to position those globally northern practices, or practical activities enacted on the urban beach and or in the sea in close proximity to those urban beaches, as sport for sports’ sake, which are disconnected in a sense from broader discourses at play in the works of Olive and Wheaton. This contemporary maritime sport, or aquatic and nautical recreation, includes surfing, kitesurfing, windsurfing, bodyboarding, open water

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swimming, beach soccer, and beach volleyball (Pereira & Dantas, 2019). While the list is incomplete – jogging, footvolley and yoga are among those activities that could be included – it is a practical summary of what might be considered as a family of popular beach sports. As is discussed in Chapter 4, wherever sport – beach volleyball, footvolley and beach soccer on the Copacabana – encroaches on the leisure activities, when a sun bather is struck with a foot or volleyball (Bellos, 2014; Tavares et al., 2020) for example, there is and will be tension. There is also inherent tension in many lifestyle sports, such as surfing, which emerged from a counter-culture movement against formalised sporting structures (Booth, 2001; Crellin, 2022), but is now benefitting from incredibly institutionalised governance, international competition and the associated capitalist ideologies and the political, social and cultural issues – and the financial imperatives – that come with it (see for example, Laderman, 2014; Thompson, 2016). Academic literature provides significant discussion on the taxonomies and sociological categorisations of beach sports and their associated cultures, such as swimming (Booth, 2016), surfing (Booth, 2017) in Australia, and beach volleyball on the Copacabana (Tavares et al., 2021). Social sport is regularly seen on beaches, such as a family playing beach cricket, or friends utilising volleyball nets on a day trip to the water. Social sports can range from these very informal, one-off examples to more structured social competitions that are not considered elite or high-performing but can be very popular. In comparison, nature-based sports, recreational or lifestyle sports, as noted above, are often the domain of individuals. Now, both individual and team-based sports are institutionalised on beaches. Competitive sport regularly occurs on global beaches, such as surfing, triathlons, and ironman. The International Life Saving Federation (ILSF), which has membership globally across four regions (Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe) has a strong competitive tradition of the Lifesaving World Championships, including beach sprints, beach flags, and surf rescues as just some of the events included. Often the beach becomes a space for spectators as well, with makeshift grandstands established during competitions. Consider, for instance, the Olympic Games: during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the beach volleyball competition was held on Bondi Beach, including grandstands; the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games held the beach volleyball competition in a constructed stadium on Copacabana Beach. Hosting an event of this scale can bring its own challenges – while the sport itself often receives a boost in popularity (certainly the case for Australia when the home women’s team won Gold), it can be met with local opposition to how these spaces are used. These types of events often represent occasions where access to the beach is either forbidden or strictly limited, temporary grandstand scaffolding is introduced, and there are potential ecological impacts. There was significant local resistance in Bondi Beach in the preparation to the Olympics, and as a result the local governing body (Waverley Council) negotiated a special agreement with the Sydney Olympic Committee (Owen, 2002). Of course, beach sports tournaments are not always held in beachside

The Beach, More Than a Pitch 31 locations. The 2021 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup took place in a purposebuilt stadium in Moscow, Russia (see Chapter 3). Despite Covid-related social distancing, it was still available online to international audiences through FIFA and their partner Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW). Sport on beaches can blur the natural affordances of the location. Some beaches are considered beautiful and iconic because of their lack of human amenities. These beaches, not necessarily remote, may include warning signs at their entry, some manufactured wooden steps for access, but certainly no formalised car parks, bathroom facilities, or convenience stores or shops. The beach itself is often untouched without any dredging or additional sand (unlike, for example, Noosa beach on the Sunshine Coast as discussed by Osbaldiston, 2018) or manufactured ocean pools as is common on some beaches in New South Wales. Many local communities in coastal locations vocally oppose plans for urban development such as high-rise apartments or highdensity town-housing. The draw of the natural beach is, for many, a crucial element of their lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, sporting competitions take place on more urbanised beaches like Copacabana or Bondi Beach. Indeed, the juxtaposition of the built environment alongside the ocean can be a striking image. Of course, beach soccer – like beach volleyball, footvolley and beach handball – can be played on artificially produced sand courts regardless of proximity to the ocean. It is important to consider the gendered nature of beach sports. Cultural representations of beaches in many countries are dominated by masculine figures. We see this reflected in international beach soccer where the women’s game is in its infancy, while men’s competitions have been thriving for close to three decades. In Australia there is a long history of the bronzed, male lifeguard figure (Ellison, 2020), which emerged from images of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) soldiers returning after World War II (Saunders, 1998). This image was perpetuated by Max Dupain’s iconic photography, The Sunbaker (1936) for example, and more recently in the internationally popular reality television show, Bondi Rescue (Davies, 2006–present). While there is ample evidence to the contrary on beaches across Australia, the most prominent portrayal of the lifeguard in Australia continues to be a man. Beach culture is often gendered in this way with a long history of focus on swimsuits and segregation of male and female swimmers in many European and British countries (Booth, 2001; Henderson, 2001). Similarly, sports media and commentary have a history of ‘gender marking’, prioritising male sports in television coverage or focusing on what could be considered traditionally feminine sports like figure skating (see Bissell & Smith, 2013; Boykoff & Yasuoka, 2015). Beach sports, such as beach volleyball, are often played in warm temperatures with a high proportion of the body on display. While beach soccer does not face the same uniform expectations as its volleyball counterpart, a gender inequality in terms of coverage and opportunity does exist – the Swiss women’s international beach soccer team played their first match almost a decade before they were joined by many women’s teams, including Brazil, the world’s leading team.

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To their credit BSWW are attempting to address inequities by running simultaneous women and men’s tournaments, but there is still a long way to go. Conclusion The beach is a site of complexities. Often trivialised as a place of leisure, for hedonism and holidays, this simplistic approach fails to capture the inherent tensions that exist within and across beaches around the world. Beaches are varied in their geography and accessibility – from isolated, natural idyllic locations to urbanised, thronging edges of beachside cities. They act as boundaries and borders, bridging the land and the sea, and for many countries they represent sites of past violence or ongoing colonial impact. It is possible to conceptualise a national or perhaps even international image or myth of a beach, and in many ways, it is the perception of what a beach should have that drives its use in beach soccer as a site of play. And yet, there are many examples of locally familiar, recognisable beaches that are embodied with a specific identity such as Copacabana or Bondi Beaches. Beaches have long been spaces where people like to exercise, and nature-based recreational activities or lifestyle sports have established histories linked with wellbeing and recovery. While much sporting activity that occurs on or around beaches is individualised – surfing, swimming, kitesurfing, or triathlons – there are also opportunities for team experiences like lifeguarding, beach volleyball, or beach handball. As these sports professionalise, the uniqueness of beach cultures and beach sites are pushed to homogenise, to fit with established governance and competition rules. Although beach soccer borrows much of its match play from its land-based counterpart, it would be a mistake to ignore the role of the beach within beach soccer’s development and the continued opportunities for development in the game. Beaches, and therefore all sports on the sand, face immediate threat from climate crises. Questions about sustainability, accessibility, and the responsibility of all beach sports organisations towards the landscape continue to go unanswered. As we move into a professional era of beach soccer that relies less on natural beach sites and more on manufactured areas for play, it would be a disservice to the sands that supported the development of the game if those beaches were irrevocably changed by severe weather and climate events in the years to come.

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Tavares, M. R., Vaz, L. F., & Matos, M. C. (2021). Copacabana e o vôlei: uma história de lazer e esportes na praia [Copacabana and volleyball: A history of leisure and sports in the beach]. Oculum Ensaios, 18, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.24220/23180919v18e2021a4899 Thompson, G. (2016). Disturbed waters: New currents in the history of water sport. Radical History Review, 2016(125), 199–205. https://doi.org/10.1215/016365453452006 Tiffin, H. (2009). Sharks and the Australian imaginary. In R. Hosking, S. Hosking, R. Pannell, & N. Bierbaum (Eds.), Something rich and strange: Sea changes, beaches and the littoral in the antipodes (pp. 75–5). Wakefield Press. Todorova, I., & Burnie, A. (2016). Climate refugees in Tuvalu: Transferable lessons from the multi-stakeholder processes of community forestry. Open Case Studies. University of British Columbia. https://cases.open.ubc.ca/climate-refugees-in-tuvalutransferable-lessons-from-the-multi-stakeholder-processes-of-community-forestry/ Wheaton, B. (2004). Introduction: Mapping the lifestyle sport-scape. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 1–28). Routledge. Wheaton, B. (2013). The cultural politics of lifestyle sports. Routledge. Wheaton, B., Roy, G., & Olive, R. (2017). Exploring critical alternatives for youth development through lifestyle sport: Surfing and community development in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Sustainability, 9(12), 2298. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122298 Wheaton, B., Waiti, J. T. A., Olive, R., & Kearns, R. (2021). Coastal communities, leisure and wellbeing: Advancing a trans-disciplinary agenda for understanding ocean-human relationships in Aotearoa New Zealand. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18020450 White, R. (2009). A short history of beach holidays. In R. Hosking, S. Hosking, R. Pannell, & N. Bierbaum (Eds.), Something rich and strange: Sea changes, beaches and the littoral in the antipodes (pp. 1–19). Wakefield Press.

Chapter Three Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context

Introduction The 2022 Neom Games in Neom featured invitational women’s and men’s beach soccer tournaments. Streamed live as part of the games, the Neom Beach Soccer Cup offered a packed schedule of matches featuring eight international teams: Bahrain, Brazil, England, Japan, Oman, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates in the men’s competition and Brazil, England, Netherlands, and Ukraine in the women’s competition. Besides some spectacular beach soccer highlights, there was an unfamiliar audio experience for most football fans. International beach soccer matches are often accompanied by dancefloor beats pumped through venue speakers throughout play. Musical accompaniment is an expected ingredient, one of many that differentiate the form from football and its other variants. In most commercialised sport, music is common in breaks in play, half-time, for example; however it is not unusual for music to play throughout the match. This is an attempt to recall the game’s heritage, to add a carnivalesque atmosphere to proceedings. Indeed, watching these matches in late 2022, it is possible to note a range of identifiers that speak to distinct stages in the game’s international evolution. The musical accompaniment is a nod to Samba and Carnaval, which have become popular metonyms for Brazilian culture. The much smaller women’s competition echoes the impact of several periods of exclusion in the country of the game’s origins. The formal structures, fierce competition, and regulatory characteristics echo those of saturated sporting markets prevalent in the global northern cultures of the United States (US) and Europe where beach soccer was cultivated in the 1990s. The 2022 socially mediated ‘event’ style presentation of matches streamed on subscription platforms colourfully celebrate the invitational nature of non-FIFA beach soccer events – the inclusion of the best ‘local’ teams alongside teams representing three of FIFA’s six Confederations: Japan from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Brazil and Paraguay from the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL – South America), and England from the Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA – Europe). The histories relayed in this chapter, like those in the chapters that follow, are captured in the main through overlapping and complementary qualitative DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-3

38  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context methods of data gathering. We employ those related to oral history research (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011), particularly where the work relates to football histories (see for example, Skillen & Osborne, 2015), and includes extensive archival research (see Klaebe & Van Luyn, 2014), and semi-structured interviews (De Jonckheere & Vaughn, 2019). We draw on sports writing (Rowe, 1992, 2007; Fensch, 2013), particularly online sports writing (Symons et al., 2022), which remains the most common form of work related to beach soccer. We adopt and adapt the model applied in Helena Byrne’s study of women’s football, which interrogates the use of digital resources, such as social media and its related platforms (2017). We have gathered and synthesised varying of published iterations of ‘beach soccer history’ as published by several beach soccer organisations, including Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) between 2001 and 2023 (see for example, beachsoccer.com, 2001a, 2002, n.d.). We apply the tenets of textual analysis (see Belsey, 2022; Hartley, 1999; McKee, 2011) and thematic analyses (see Joffe & Yardley, 2004) to interrogate the collective works before presenting a cohesive narrative. Beach soccer’s contemporary form and its place on FIFA and all Confederation football calendars reflects its vibrant recent development and belies a much longer, richer set of histories. This chapter unpacks a broad – although necessarily brief – linear narrative that contextualises highlights offered in more detail in the chapters that follow, including: its period of development in Brazil in the 1920–1950s; its unique place on the sporting landscape in the US in the 1990s; its concurrent celebrity endorsement in southern Europe; and its emergence in Oceania. We build on the foundations of beach soccer’s growth, examine some of its past and present struggles, consider reasons to be optimistic about the sport’s future, and identify matters for further research. An understanding of the initiation and development of beach soccer prior to and under the umbrella of BSWW and FIFA highlights regional narratives and provides context on the development and contemporary status of international beach soccer competitions, particularly those referred to across the rest of the book. To contextualise the origins of beach soccer, we begin with a brief summation of the historical development of football. A brief history of football There are many established and emerging tensions in the disciplinary overlaps in the study of sport and its respective histories. The influence of amateur sport, including football, on wider British society is an important example (see Bale et al., 2007). The game’s development from street or open park game to rules, regulation and standard-sized pitches and competitive tournaments, and its diffusion among and absorption into many cultures as part of ‘a British mercantile colonial legacy’ (Williams, 2007, p. 1; see also Bale & Cronin, 2020; Hay, 2006, 2021), is widely regarded as key to shaping the modern game. Subsequent consideration of postcolonialism and sport, including football, and the impact of Euro-centric textual and sporting discourse

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 39 should be included in consideration of these overlapping fields (for discussion on postcolonialism as epoch, content, and method, see Bale, 2002; Bale & Cronin, 2020). While this text focuses on social history of one variant of football and lacks the scope and scale for extended discussion on any cultural, political and or economic legacies of colonialism and imperialism, it is essential to note that football’s origins are tied to a diverse array of cultures, times, places, and contestations. While this work is not able to provide expansive exploration of related topics and materials, it will, wherever possible, note key readings and highlight key issues. To situate beach soccer within its related sporting landscape, we now offer a broad historical context, a brief pre-history of the modern game. The earliest conception of a football-like sport is Pok-A-Tok (c. 3000 BCE), a Mesoamerican foot and ball game that occurred regularly over a period of 4000 years. Game play was challenging; researchers believe it was so difficult to score, the first team to do so would often be declared winners (Torreblanca et al., 2020). There is evidence of a football-like game, tied to dance related rituals, during a range of Chinese Dynasties between 206 BCE – 220 CE, 618–917 CE, 960–1279 CE (see Goldblatt, 2006; Williams, 2007). In 2500 BCE in the city of Tsu Chu, China, players juggled and kicked a ball, using their feet, head, knees, and chest, into a net or piece of holed silk held across a wooden structure (Goldblatt, 2006). This game, Cuju (pronounced ‘shoo-ju’), would feature women’s teams, including rare though celebrated talented players, such as the Peng Xiyun, an expert juggler of the ball (Williams, 2007). Described as ‘folk football’ (Elias & Dunning, 2017; Walvin, 1994), some of these games were played with a solid ball, others with an air-filled animal bladder. The Greeks and Romans played Episkyros or Phainindra (Greek) or Harpastum (Latin) with an inflated ball in the third century CE (Giossos et al., 2011). In the seventh century football-like games emerged in Japan and North America. While exhibition matches are played in traditional apparel today, the Japanese game, Kemari, played with a hollow deerskin ball gained popularity in 644 CE; though its rules were not standardised until the twelfth century (Guttmann & Thompson, 2001). As many as 500 Native American women and men gathered to play Pasuckuakohowog [‘they gather to play ball with the foot’], a large-scale ‘kick and run’ game on beaches and clearings (see Bunk, 2021; Hall, 2016; Seddon, 2004). The Sámi, the Indigenous peoples of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, played a fierce ball game known as Goatsuballo in the ninth century (see Skogvang, 2007, 2019). The game echoed the forms of folk football that had materialised across Europe during the Middle Ages, which saw large groups compete in pushing, pulling, kicking, and heaving a solid, weighty ball toward a pre-fixed landmark (Goldblatt, 2006). Calcio confined thirteenth century teams to Italian town squares while the French game, La Choule or Soule, set whole parishes against each other. Church documents record football-like sports, including women playing a foot and ball game, in Carstairs, Scotland in 1628 (Skillen et al., 2022). These matches are predated by the world’s oldest ball, housed in Glasgow by

40  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context the Scottish Football Museum. An inflated pig’s bladder contained in a coarse cow hide leather outer shell was concealed for almost 500 years (estimated 1545 CE) between the ceiling and wall panels of Mary Queen of Scots’ former chambers in Stirling Castle, Scotland (Hanson & Harland, 2012). In 1568, Queen Mary wrote and reflected on a ball game that allowed use of the head and feet played whilst she resided in Stirling Castle in the mid-late 1540s (Hessayon, 2019). These organised ball games were common during the period (Hanson & Harland, 2012). The northern Scottish game, Kirkwall Ba, has taken place annually for centuries up and down the streets of the Orkney’s largest town (see Seddon, 2004, and Goldblatt, 2006, for further details on geographical and historical precedents of folk football). There are of course many historical instances in the sport’s developments and many more works that should be noted, including those of Peter Burke on early modern Europe (2017); Richard Giulianotti on the sociology of football (1999) and José Miguel Wisnik, which offers a comprehensive review in Portuguese (2013). The formalisation of modern football is believed to have occurred with formation of men’s association football in England during the late 1870s, which followed its initiation in Oxford, England in 1863 (see Collins, 2018; Goldblatt, 2006; Goulstone, 2000; Taylor, 2013; Walvin, 1994). Another school of thought puts the game’s informal development in Sheffield, England earlier in the 1850s (see for example Curry, 2014; Curry & Dunning, 2017; Harvey, 2013) and there is speculation on earlier occurrences (see Hay, 2018, 2019a, 2019b, 2021; Swain, 2014, 2015; Tranter, 1990, 1993). The authors of this text align with the work of historian, Ged O’Brien. The Scottish Football Museum and the Andrew Watson Institute posit ‘the passing game’, the foundation of modern football, was conceived in Scotland before public participation in the sport in Glasgow parks in 1867 (see O’Brien, 2021). The dominant force in football’s narrative, the English Football Association (FA), legalised the paying of players in 1885 (see Russell, 2011), and three years later the first men’s Football League formed. Within two decades, ideas of society and their structures had been overturned, football professionalised and wrestled from notions of amateur purity and the leisure classes. The English FA had banned women from playing football on FA affiliated grounds (1921–1971) (see Melling, 1999; Newsham, 2014; Williams, 2003). Much has been written on the historical unfolding of men and women’s football. Among its many theorists, social commentators, and historians, the works of Arthur Hopcraft (2013), James Walvin (1994), Tony Mason (1981, 1995), Richard Holt (1986, 1990), Sue Lopez (1997), Margaret Ann Hall (2016), Jean Williams (2003, 2007), David Goldblatt (2006), Roy Hay (1994, 2006, 2021), Adrian Harvey (2013), Gail Newsham (2014), Tony Collins (2018), David Bunk (2021), and Suzanne Wrack (2022) are important and must be considered at a global level. The quadrennial FIFA men’s World Cup and the quadrennial FIFA Women’s World Cup are the most prestigious football tournaments in the world. The qualification process for these tournaments takes approximately two years. The tournaments popularly described as the women’s or men’s ‘World Cup’ are technically, the World Cup Finals, a single compressed tournament played out

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 41 among those teams that qualify from the five stronger FIFA Confederations; the qualifying teams are determined through extended regional/continental competitions between neighbouring national association members that take up to two years of scheduled group matches. The first FIFA men’s World Cup occurred in 1930. The first FIFA Women’s World Cup did not take place until 1991. In addition, FIFA facilitate a small number of global football competitions categorised by age. These include the biennial women’s and men’s Under-20 (U20) FIFA World Cups for national teams of players under the age of 20, and women’s and men’s Under-17 (U17) FIFA World Cups for national teams of players under 17 years of age. These tournaments are designed with player development in mind and have become increasingly popular with national football associations looking to build their nation’s game (see for example, McGowan et al., 2023). They are becoming increasingly popular with fans who can follow tournament progress through social media, enabled by accessible, often free, or inexpensive platforms (see Lawrence & Crawford, 2018; Mason, 2021; Rofe, 2022). Football tournaments at the Summer Olympic Games are quadrennial global competitions. Olympic senior men’s football is regarded as a development tournament and limited to U23 squads (see Moore, 2014 for details, including the development of Paralympic football). Olympic women’s football is a welcome and important generator of international fixtures where national and regional competition game time remains limited (see McGowan et al., 2023). Prior to the first men’s World Cup, men’s football was included in two Summer Olympic Games, including the inaugural modern Games in 1896 when football was in an emergent state of being. For the 1932 Summer Olympic Games, FIFA sought to promote the World Cup, their new international tournament, and asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to include football (see for example, Glanville 2014; Moore, 2014). Today FIFA support the IOC in the delivery of Olympic football tournaments. These tournaments, particularly the heavy economic machinery of the quadrennial FIFA men’s World Cup tournament, and increasingly, the quadrennial FIFA Women’s World Cup, provide a useful structural exemplar for football’s evolutionary continuum. As a simplistic demonstration of the game’s geographic spread (at the time of writing), 211 nations have addressed the involved criteria required by FIFA for membership (FIFA.com, n.d.). This outnumbers current membership of the United Nations – 193 (United Nations, n.d.). The impact and influence of the World Cup and FIFA have been the subject of significant volumes of academic research in sporting (see for example, Bandyopadhyay et al., 2018; Jiri et al., 2007), cultural, including bidding processes (see for example, Sugden & Tomlinson, 2013; Tomlinson & Young, 2006), environmental (see for example, Renkiewicz, 2015; Sofotasiou et al., 2015), and economic terms (see for example, Bason et al., 2018; Chadwick et al., 2022); others have spoken eloquently to its cosmopolitan and spectacular nature (Goldblatt, 2014). Rather than continue to unpack a historically lengthy and geographically expansive set of football histories, we now turn to the game’s development in Brazil, and specifically where it led to the emergence of beach soccer.

42  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context Beach soccer histories Football is believed to have arrived in Brazil in 1894 (Bellos, 2014). For its first two decades, the sport was largely restricted to affluent Euro-centric organisations, private, urban, amateur clubs, such as Fluminense FC (1902), whose players tended to be European-born or of European heritage (see Barreto, 2013; Hamilton, 1998). Reflecting the sport’s exponential growth in popularity in England and parts of Europe, interest soon spread to the working classes (Goldblatt, 2014). Harsh living conditions, high population density, perennial good weather, and a lack of open ground led to the emergence of the pelada – the Brazilian brand of the ‘kickabout’, or ‘pick-up game’ (a US term); those same conditions and the characteristic skills exhibited by Brazilian players as a result are as prevalent and celebrated today (Uehara et al., 2018, 2021). Kickabouts are informal, unorganised, unregulated, impromptu football-like games that differ from football in terms of their participatory qualities (anyone can play), the construction of game play norms (team sizes are flexible and negotiable), and in its adaption to terrain (any space will be used) (Ellis & Sharma, 2013). Since the game’s incorporation into Brazilian culture, these spontaneous kickabouts have and continue to occur wherever there is space to play, irrespective (or in spite) of conditions (Araújo et al., 2010; Pimenta, 2013; Uehara et al., 2018); on open grass fields; in the streets; on rooftops; on oil rigs; and beaches (BBC, 2014; Bellos, 2014). In the early 1920s, demand for success in a stiff domestic league competition forced a shift in strategy, its affluent clubs, such as Club de Regatas Vasco de Gama (1898), began to relinquish their restrictive exclusionary class and race-based recruitment policies and those players who had honed their skills in pelada, in the Favelas, found themselves in demand and playing professionally. Kickabouts are common in most football nations and cultures. Brazilian beaches offer constant, readily available, and inexpensive (free) space, they have and continue to function as space for exercise and community participation. Rio de Janeiro’s expansive coastline – 54 miles of continuous beach – were and are seen as grounds for play and activity before they were/are seen as a site for relaxation (Goldblatt, 2014). The boundaries separating football from beach soccer in Brazil are porous. Irrespective of overlap, we take the origins of beach soccer as they are acknowledged and formalised according to the City of Rio de Janeiro, who determined the game’s initiation as part of their local ‘intangible cultural heritage’, as defined by UNESCO (2003), and recorded it as such in the 2016 adoption of a public bill of rights, Law No. 2102/2016 (Bastos, 2016). The bill recognises and documents the relationship the Cariocas, the residents of Rio de Janeiro, have with beach soccer, futebol de praia. They are its inventors, the architects of its design and its evolution. The bill underlines the regular organised competitions that have taken place in the city since the 1920s (Bastos, 2016) (see Figure 3.1). These competitions, between neighbourhood teams, spread across the southern reaches of the city’s coastline. Anecdotal evidence demonstrates beach soccer’s popularity progressed

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 43

Figure 3.1 Timeline marking significant events in beach soccer histories between 1923 and 2023

44  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context throughout the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1950s it had become so prominent, with formal leagues and informal matches, the sport dominated the landscape (Curran, 2012). Indeed, the mass of players and extent of established clubs competing in local inter-neighbourhood tournaments necessitated substantial overarching organisation. In 1960, the codification, officiation, and governance of the multiple individual competitions were unified under the Federation of Beach Sports of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Bastos, 2016). This organisation’s successors, such as Federação de Beach Soccer do Estado do Rio de Janeiro [Beach Soccer Federation of the State of Rio de Janeiro] support the administration and organisation of contemporary beach soccer in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The early Brazilian origins of beach soccer (explored in detail in Chapter 4) are noted by BSWW, and subsequently FIFA – who highlight a tournament in 1957 in Brazil (FIFA.com, 2020) – in their respective abbreviated beach soccer histories. However, for the sake of expedience and reader convenience they tend to gloss over the broader heritage, and instead position the sport’s initiation alongside the more recent introduction and codification of the compact version of the game – a 1992 pro-am tournament in Los Angeles, California (the abbreviation pro-am stands for events for ‘professional and amateur’ contestants and refers to an open competition for both categories of player). An aspect of the sport to be investigated in future research is the relationship between the development of this compact version of beach soccer and the popular sport of beach volleyball, which was introduced to California beaches in the 1920s, but is likely to have commenced in Hawaii in 1915 (Couvillon, 2002; Tavares et al., 2020). An earlier example of a compact version of beach soccer’s codification in the US is frequently overlooked (and discussed in more detail in Chapter 5). We now examine the game’s development in the 1990s. BSWW oversee operations, competitions, and administration for beach soccer around the world. From the beaches of Brazil in the late 1990s to its current international levels of recognition and status, BSWW are arguably the single most important factor in driving football on sand, increasing its visibility, and promoting its growth. While this globally comprehensive influence does not stretch to cover the whole game in the US, BSWW’s own heritage begins there with one of its founding partners, Giancarlo Signorini. He created the 1992 pro-am tournament in Los Angeles under BSI, a company he directed (we do not have any more information than this acronym). As a proam event, it may technically have included professional beach soccer, if not the first professional tournament. Through its format and rules, drawn up by Signorini, the 1992 Los Angeles tournament established a model that would later form the basis for BSWW competitions. A compact, fast, acrobatic, attacking-style of game designed to maximise spectator engagement – no draws, high scores, relatively large goals; in short, a version of football where the goalkeepers are the busiest players on the pitch. The event is acknowledged by the organisation as the pilot for their current brand of international beach soccer (see BSWW, n.d.a).

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 45 Four years earlier in 1987, Englishman Peter Mellor, a goalkeeping coach to the men’s and women’s US National football teams, instituted his own competition, Major Beach Soccer (MBS), the first formalised US beach soccer tournament, in Clearwater Beach, Florida (Life’s a Beach, 2016). A pre-existing relationship with the football equipment manufacturer, Umbro, led to their sponsoring the event, which grew to accommodate multiple local tournaments and a larger annual National Championship each December (Lewis, n.d.). Alongside the growth of beach soccer in Florida, Umbro established an informal amateur US Sand Soccer Federation (sandsoccer.com, 2001). Their representatives prompted Dick Whalen at the Hampton Roads Soccer Council, Virginia Beach, Virginia to organise the inaugural North American Sand Soccer Championship (NASSC). Whalen’s 1994 tournament comprised of 26 local teams (sandsoccer.com, 2001). The NASSC, will see its twenty-ninth edition in 2023. Their largest tournament to date (2019) included close to 1100 teams, 12,000 players, and attracted approximately 200,000 attendees across a three-day event. The NASSC, which is examined in more detail in Chapter 5 is quantifiably the largest beach soccer tournament in the world. The early 1990s reimagining of beach soccer as a commercial enterprise continued with Signorini devising what is regarded as the first fully professional beach soccer tournament in Miami Beach, Florida in 1993 (BSWW, n.d.a). Participating teams represented Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and the US. The tournament attracted local television coverage and commercial sponsorship. Recognition of the potential, or perhaps the participation of a representative national team, may have instigated the action of Koch Tavares, a major Brazilian sports marketing agency, to partner with Rede Globo, Brazil’s national broadcaster (now named Grupo Globo) and form the International Beach Soccer Association (IBSA) (kochtavares.com, 1998). Koch Tavares had been promoting beach volleyball since the 1980s and brought their wealth of experience to futebol de praia. In 1994, Viking Graham, a US-based investment company allied to the powerful Graham Group (Key, 1998) – a Philadelphia based investment conglomerate – acquired Signorini’s company BSI and, with it, the rights to Signorini’s template to stage professional beach soccer events. A partnership with Koch Tavares resulted in the formation of the Beach Soccer Company (BSC) (beachsoccer.com, 2002). Even as they cast an eye on international expansion, BSC initially tried to build the game in the US. Their first event occurred in Los Angeles during the 1994 FIFA men’s World Cup tournament hosted in cities across the US. The media were reluctant to promote association football, a sport they saw as non-American (Goldblatt, 2006). BSC were undaunted and staged a second event in Miami in June 1995 before stretching their wings for a series of exhibition matches in Japan (beachsoccer.com, 2002) – this series instigated a thriving Japanese beach soccer culture. Alongside provision of support for BSC beach soccer events, Koch Tavares continued to run and promote Brazilian beach soccer events. Between April 1994 and May 1997, the marketing agency’s partnership with Rede Globo

46  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context produced 11 separate competitions in the cities of Salvador (Bahia), Rio de Janeiro, Santos and São Paulo, including: the inaugural Mundialito (1994); the inaugural Copa América (1994); and the inaugural World Beach Soccer Championships (1995). Exhibition matches featuring former international footballers and emerging national beach soccer stars, such as the all-star ‘Game of the Stars’ were clear favourites with fans (kochtavares.com, 1998). Koch Tavares claim to have devised the rules for their version of beach soccer, designed specifically for these events and the exploitation of potential commercial and advertising opportunities. Their matches included three short periods of game play, acrobatic movement, and lots of goals (kochtavares.com, 1998), which is very similar to the game structure designed by Signorini in 1992. In the first three years of Koch Tavares’ involvement, which included the construction of temporary beach soccer stadiums with a spectator capacity of between 5,000 (Gonzaga Beach, Santos) and 12,000 (Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro), Koch Tavares accredited as many as 100 professionals from across a spectrum of news agencies to report on each tournament (kochtavares.com, 1998), and garnered extensive newspaper, radio, and television coverage. During this same period, BSC launched two relatively aggressive parallel programs to grow the sport and assert their position (beachsoccer.com, 2002). The first, the 1996/1997 Pro Beach Soccer Tour, would consist of an estimated 60 staged exhibition matches across a range of countries on three continents (beachsoccer.az, 2005); the second program, juxtaposed with the matches, was a vigorous campaign to advance a BSC Franchise network and brand loyalty (beachsoccer.com, 2002). When the Pro Beach Soccer Tour commenced its season, it did so with lucrative sponsorship from globally recognised brands, including, Citizen, Coca-Cola, Daewoo, Dr. Pepper, Gold’s Gym, Konica, Mild Seven (the former name of Japanese tobacco company, Mevius), Umbro, and Wrangler (Young Men by the Sea, 1997). Through a deal with the US-based ABC network, BSC were able to claim television exposure in over 120 countries (beachsoccer.com, 2002); an attractive proposition to companies keen to promote their products. Highlights of exhibition matches were included in the sports digest anthology, ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which stopped airing early in 1998 (Real & Kunz, 2020). The first Pro Beach Soccer tour visited Argentina and Brazil in South America; England, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Netherlands, Portugal, and the region formerly known as Yugoslavia in 1996, in Europe; and Japan and Malaysia in Asia. The matches featured famous former association football stars, including Eric Cantona from France, Míchel (José Miguel González Martín del Campo) of Spain, and the Brazilian stars, Júnior (Léo Júnior), Romário (Romário de Souza Faria), and Zico (Arthur Antunes Coimbra) (beachsoccer.com, 2002). The Brazilian players were introduced and had become heavily involved in local beach soccer with the Koch Tavares initiatives in 1994 (kochtavares.com, 1998). The aegis of a formidable investment firm, a sizeable sports marketing agency, and the highly successful media and promotional campaigns and tournaments that followed – the Brazilian tournaments achieved extensive

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 47 mainstream coverage – would provide evidence a variant of football so readily leant itself to televisual promotion was worthy of investment. The tours, exhibitions, and campaigns significantly advanced the BSC franchise network and promoted and protected the BSC and Pro Beach Soccer Tour beach soccer trademarks and branding. The company attained the necessary commercial safeguards in as many as 32 countries and secured ‘non-compete agreements’ with a small number of highly influential sports marketing agencies (beachsoccer.com, 2002). This level of control of the sports promotion and revenue generation, achieved through an overtly commercial approach, would appeal to FIFA, who had attained a sense of ‘ownership’ over football long before they engaged in their now customary acquisitive approach in the lead up to and delivery of the 1982 FIFA men’s World Cup in Spain (see for example, Homburg, 2008; Tennent & Gillett, 2022; Vonnard & Sbetti, 2018). The 1996/1997 tour laid important groundwork for competition to emerge outside of the Americas. Exploiting its success, BSC formed the 1998 European Pro Beach Soccer League (EPBSL) comprised of representative national teams including: France, runners up Italy, competition winners Germany, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and former Yugoslavia (BSWW, n.d.a). The tour comprised of a series of short-form knock-out competitions scheduled across seven events in cities in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and Monaco across an eight-week period. The teams were positioned as national representatives, though they did not arise as a result of rigorous team selection and stringent eligibility requirements, the measured qualification processes undertaken in association football. Team selection, like most tournaments, were arrived at informally through word of mouth and invitation. The French team, for example, featured Joël Cantona as coach and included his brother, former Manchester United midfielder, Eric, among the players. The Spanish team were a group of friends who played professional football. BSC were, however, playing a longer game. The EPBSL provided BSC with a European-based infrastructure on which to grow and professionalise their sport (beachsoccer.az, 2005). So, citing proximity to their European ‘Franchisees’ (beach soccer promotional agencies) and the building of what had by then become an international brand, they relocated to Monte-Carlo, Monaco in 1998, where they named his Highness, the SAS Prince Albert of Monaco, the organisation’s Honorary President (BSWW, 2005). With so many former players involved, the game had become very popular in the Principality. The Beach Soccer Company moved to Barcelona in 1999 and rebranded in April 2000. BSC became Pro Beach Soccer (PBS) (beachsoccer.az, 2005; beachsoccer.com, 2002). The sustained league format linked franchisees, sponsors, the media, and television coverage. PBS supported Koch Tavares in overseeing the America’s League, another series of short-form knock-out competition events in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, the US, and Venezuela. These tournaments warrant further investigation. The top teams from European and North and South American competitions qualified for the World Championships in Brazil, which took place annually since

48  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context between 1995 and 2004 in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil won every trophy. The 1994 pre-World Championship tournament organised by Koch Tavares is often referred to as the Mundialito. In 1997, PBS recast the Mundialito (beachsoccer. com, 2001b), which was held in Portugal between 1997 and 2014 and then from 2016-2019 when COVID-19 would see the tournament enter its current ongoing postponement. Brazil and Portugal have dominated the competition. PBS continued to highlight their emphasis on securing the rights and cooperation agreements with promoters and national football associations in these countries (beachsoccer.com, 2001b). As well as these travelling tournament/ league style tours, PBS oversaw individual events in Türkiye, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (beachsoccer.com, 2002). In 1999, Koch Tavares were absorbed by the multi-national media communications company, Octagon (Campaign, 1999). They remained actively involved in beach soccer in Brazil and the driving force behind the Beach Soccer World Championships until 2004. In late 2000, Octagon Koch Tavares and PBS determined a new partnership strategy that would unify the Pro Beach Soccer tournament structure and schedule and provide combined representation to major sponsors and the media. They formed the company Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) (beachsoccer.com, 2002; BSWW, n.d.a). This proved to be invaluable where the organisation was already negotiating with FIFA for recognition of their newly rebranded competitions (beachsoccer.com, 2001b). In their first season (2001), BSWW consolidated the organisation and took on coordination of the European Pro Beach Soccer League (EPBSL) and the Pro Beach Soccer tour based in Spain, and oversaw the World Championships, the Copa Latina (1998–2011) and the exhibition-style Copa América (1994–1999, 2003, 2012–2018) tournaments based in Brazil. These changes coincided with an increase in national teams and the America’s League taking shape. Teams from North and South America entered. The Pro Beach Soccer Tour also extended its horizons to Australia, England, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. By 2004, 17 teams had entered the EBSL and three more were preparing for the commencement of the 2005 season (BSWW, 2004). Increasing television coverage and sponsorship from international brand entities including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and MasterCard aligned with increasing demand from promoters and an expanding roster of teams and countries keen to stage events. The combination of these factors finally, after more than three years of negotiations, convinced FIFA to enter into partnership with BSWW (BSWW, 2005) who achieved a key long-term aim in the process. Consideration had been given to the pursuit of the International Olympics Committee for the potential introduction to the sport – we need only look to the success of beach volleyball for comparison – however FIFA’s network of Confederations, and within them individual national associations, offered almost ready access to an extensive network of football communities with an established preexisting understanding of the core elements of beach soccer. The result was a significant impact on the development of the sport and its most prestigious

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 49 global competition, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. While the tournament capped a decade of annual invitational World Championships, FIFA positioned beach soccer as an innovative addition to their competition portfolio and took ownership of some of its governance within their own frameworks. A considerable range of international and club level competitions remain with BSWW who continue to grow and work to promote the sport through mostly invitational international and club level tournaments. The next section considers the FIFA Beach World Cup as a vehicle to briefly unpack the global development of beach soccer and provide a snapshot of the contemporary game. Beach soccer, FIFA, and the World Cup The 2023 edition of the men’s FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The qualification process is incomplete at the time of writing. The event will echo the structure of previous editions, a compact tournament, that runs for around 10–12 days, comprised of 16 teams – the host nation and 15 best qualifiers. The teams represent most corners of FIFA’s six continental governing bodies, which are:

• AFC – the Asian Football Confederation; • CAF – Confederation of African Football; • CONCACAF – the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football;

• CONMEBOL – Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol [South American Football Confederation];

• OFC – Oceania Football Confederation; • and UEFA – Associations Union des associations européennes de football [Union of European Football Associations].

The teams are drawn in four groups of four depending on a seeding process determined by FIFA. After each team has played the others in their group, the group winner (with the most points for wins) and runner up advance to the quarter-final knock-out stage. The losing semi-finalists play-off for third place honours. The tournament champions and runners up are determined in a final match. BSWW retain significant influence within FIFA’s organisation of the Beach Soccer World Cup and other FIFA branded beach soccer tournaments (BSWW, 2004). For example, they support each of the continental governing bodies in the development of their men’s and more recently women’s elite level beach soccer. They continue to manage significant aspects of the sport, including the preliminary qualification rounds of the World Cup, but FIFA maintain responsibility for the governance of the World Cup Finals. FIFA determined to build on precedents established in the earliest stages of BSWW’s evolution as an organisation. While BSWW organised the 2005 tournament, FIFA brought

50  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context their sponsors with them and elected to rebrand the event as the inaugural FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup (FIFA.com, 2005), which was technically the tenth edition of the international high-profile competition to take place on Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro (beachsoccer.az, 2005; beachsoccer.com, 2002). Almost every other established aspect of the Brazilian event remained in place. For the first time in a decade however, Brazil did not win or even make it to the final. In their stead, the French team, featuring Eric Cantona, defeated fellow European powerhouse, Portugal. The impact and influence of BSWW’s partnership with world football’s governing body would become more evident in their second edition of the rebranded tournament. FIFA increased team numbers from 12 to 16, introduced their traditional authoritative control of the competition, and a more rigorous qualification process – the previous model was informed by the invitational practices required to build the sport. FIFA’s leading role in the expansion in the sport and its reach firmly reshaped international beach soccer in its own image. The distribution of the 15 available places in the tournament (the sixteenth is reserved for the host) is determined by the governing body on the basis of what, in lieu of more transparent practices, might be described as regional competitiveness. The criteria are likely to include the number of teams in a given confederation that regularly participate in each regional qualification process. New Zealand, for example, has only ever entered a team in 2007, the year they hosted the OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (New Zealand Football, 2007; OFC Media Officer, 2020). Other likely criteria include the success, and frequency of success, with which teams from a particular region win the competition. European teams are often heavily favoured where the competition has longevity (since 1996) and the depth and strength in their competition (BSWW, 2005) – more European teams have won the competition than any other confederation. FIFA’s determinations around seeding and qualifications systems and available places remain somewhat opaque and open to question (see for example, Csató, 2023; Stone & Rod, 2016). The breakdown of places is as follows: five teams from UEFA; three from the AFC; three from CONMEBOL; two from CAF; and two from CONCACAF; and one from OFC. The 2006 and 2007 editions of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup took place in Rio de Janeiro. With the home advantage, Brazil won both. They would also win the 2008 tournament hosted in Marseille, France (the first outside of Brazil), and the 2009 tournament in Dubai, UAE. Marina di Raveena, a small town on the northern Italian Raveena coastline, the Lido Adriano on the Adriatic Sea, hosted Russia’s first of three competitions wins in 2011. Tahiti finished a very respectable fourth when they hosted the 2013 tournament in the French Polynesian capital, Papeete. Home team advantage would see Portugal win the 2015 tournament in Espinho, the city by the beach, in the country’s north. Tahiti bettered their results with a competition runnersup medal with their loss to Portugal in the final. Across the Atlantic in Nassau, the capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Brazil won their fifth FIFA world title in 2017 – 14 in all. Portugal won their second in 2019 in

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 51 landlocked Paraguay. The South American nation’s first ever FIFA tournament played out on the shores of Ypacaraí Lake in the city of Luque. The tournament marked the retirement of the greatest ever player in men’s beach soccer, Portuguese super star, João Victor Saraiva, known simply as Madjer. Paraguay is not the only landlocked country to have beach soccer teams. This seemingly incongruous geographical aspect of the sport speaks to the diversity in competing nations and is arguably a direct result of FIFA’s promotion and support of beach soccer. Teams from nations that would not otherwise have the capacity or the resources to field a competitive association football national team have embraced the differences offered by the compact match play and pitch surface and sought to exploit the opportunities it affords. In addition to the economic, experiential, and sporting advantages of successful participation, many of the nations now supporting teams are in a position to host the tournament and take advantage of what that entails – this is a tournament that bloomed into life as highly televisual commercial property attracting top tier sponsorship. From a physical perspective the event features short matches with rapid player exchange and recuperation times situated in one location over a relatively short intense period. These factors may have contributed to the competition quickly gaining international momentum. Despite FIFA’s 2015 bidding process corruption scandal (see for example, Khamvongsa, 2015; Onwumechili & Bedeau, 2017; Rowe, 2017), the bidding process for hosting rights of the Beach Soccer World Cup became increasingly complex. The numbers of bidders dramatically increased from one bid to the next, leaping to 12 separate bids to host the 2015 tournament, followed by a sharp lift in bidders for the right to host the 2017 edition. With no bid selected from the ten submitted in the first round, FIFA opened a second, which attracted one improved bid and 11 new submissions, meaning 21 individual nations prepared and delivered bids for the rights to host the 2017 tournament (FIFA. com, 2013, 2014). FIFA appeared to have adopted more stringent or at least a more considered approach to the process: BSWW Deputy Vice President Gabino Renales noted three submissions for the 2019 tournament (beachsoccer.ru, 2018). Five bids were submitted for the 2021 tournament (FIFA.com, 2019) (for in-depth examination on FIFA bidding processes, see for example, Merten & Winand, 2022; Rofe, 2022). In an attempt to heighten the level of spectacle, event organisers sought approval to install the 2021 tournament in Red Square, Moscow (Butler, 2016). When many other large scale events were being postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19, the 2021 competition went ahead in a purpose-built venue within the grounds of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex, on the outskirts of Moscow (TASS.ru, 2021). While the qualification process was disrupted, 15 teams qualified or were nominated in time for tournament commencement. Some of the continental qualifying tournaments were cancelled and successful teams were selected (based on points per win system) to represent their respective confederation. The home team, playing under the national association name and buoyed by local if socially distanced support, were crowned World

52  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context Champions for the third time (FIFA.com, 2021). In accordance with a ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the Russian team were not permitted to use the Russian name, flag, or anthem (Ingle, 2020; see also, Brown, 2020). As host nation they held a qualification spot and FIFA allowed the team to participate as the Russian Football Union (RFU), or Team RFU. Their tournament victory and matches are regarded as de facto results of the Russian national team by the RFU, BSWW and FIFA. As we note the other participating teams in the tournament, we outline the breadth and structural make up of beach soccer as it sits within FIFA. The CONCACAF and CONMEBOL Beach Soccer Championships began in 2006 with teams that had participated in the Copa América, such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the US (Garin, 2009), and teams that had participated in BSC’s America’s League (beachsoccer.com, 2002); competitions that provided the foundation for the formation of beach soccer tournaments in both continental governing bodies. Indeed, in 2007, the successful CONMEBOL and CONCACAF teams participated in a play-off for qualification to the World Cup. FIFA’s presence and ownership of the organisation of beach soccer prompted an acceleration in the attainment of level of professionalisation. A contributing factor was their insistence on and introduction of a qualification process where most BSWW employed an invitational process. Rather be selective, this practice, characterised the Koch Tavares influenced World Championships is ruled by availability. Where professional leagues are more common in contemporary beach soccer, selection of a full national squad can be impacted by the contractual obligations of individual players. Of the 11 teams that participated in the CONCACAF North American qualifiers, the teams heading to Moscow in 2021 were El Salvador who won the tournament and the US, the team they defeated in the tournament final. Of ten teams that participated in the South American qualifiers, the three teams that entered the Moscow tournament were CONMEBOL tournament winners, Brazil, runners up, Uruguay and third place Paraguay. Uruguay have been regulars at the tournament and Paraguay, through extensive use of the stadium constructed for the 2019 event have become a burgeoning force on the international beach soccer circuit. The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers, the formal name of the European qualification process administered by BSWW, began as the 1998 European Pro Beach Soccer League, which has the distinction of being the oldest beach soccer tournament in Europe. Its successor, the Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL), which formed in 2004, has doubled as the qualification process for the men’s beach soccer’s most prestigious tournament since 2006 (beachsoccer.com, 2006). It is important to note that, unlike other Confederations, UEFA do not organise the European qualifiers. BSWW have taken the leading hand in the process, producing the qualifying events alongside their European competitions. This is likely due to their governance of the game in Europe. Out of the 38 national teams that have participated, only

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 53 four have featured in every season: France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The strength of the competition prompted FIFA to apportion five spots in the world cup finals to EBSL teams. In June 2021, 21 teams took part in a multistage competition. The teams were ranked according to their performances in the EBSL. The first round, a round-robin tournament, where all participating teams play each other once, saw five of ten qualify for a 16 team second round group stage. Then similar to the World Cup format, the top two teams of each second-round group enter a complex knock-out stage to determine team rankings for the tournament. Spain (winners), Ukraine (runners up), Portugal (third place), Belarus and Switzerland won the places. The landlocked nations of Belarus and Switzerland have earned reputations as formidable, if surprising, opposition. Belarus have qualified for the 2019 (Paraguay) and 2021 (Russia) FIFA men’s World Cups. Switzerland have emerged from the World Cup group stages five (of six) times in the tournament. They have earned runners up (2009) and third place (2021) finishes. Before the Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations took place in 2015, the tournament was known as the CAF Beach Soccer Championships. The first four tournaments, between 2006 and 2009, took place in Durban, South Africa. Only four teams have won the tournament including current champions, Senegal, who have won the competition seven times and only missed out on a medal place once since the tournament’s inception. Fourteen teams have competed in all; eight participated in the 2022 edition where Senegal defeated Egypt in the final after a tense penalty shoot-out. Both teams will participate in the World Cup in Dubai. Previous winners include Cameroon (2006), Nigeria (2007, 2009), and Madagascar (2015). Côte d’Ivoire (2009, 2013) and Mozambique (2021) have also gained World Cup spots, along with Egypt (2022). Since its inception in 2006, 15 nations have participated in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Beach Soccer Championships, which determine the teams that will qualify for the World Cup. At the time of writing, the 2023 qualification competition has yet to take place. When the 2021 edition was cancelled due to COVID-19, the three places for AFC teams were determined on a points per win system. They were filled by: Japan, reigning champions with three competitions wins (2009, 2011, 2019); Oman (previous champions in 2015); and UAE (previous champions in 2007, 2008). Other winners in the region include Bahrain (2006) and Asian beach soccer powerhouse Iran (2013, 2017), whose performances have inspired a worldwide following. China, Lebanon, and recently Palestine (2019) are among those to attain a semi-final place. In Oceania, beach soccer is regarded as a growth sport and, at the same time, a sport with relative longevity. With its ready supply of beach-covered coastline, the number of nations territories and sovereign states that support beach soccer is increasing. Of the 11 OFC members, eight have been represented by men’s national teams at the OFC Beach Nations Cup between 2006 and 2019. The only team to compete in each edition of the competition, Solomon Islands, and current regional powerhouse and reigning champions,

54  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context Tahiti, the largest island in the French Polynesia are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. The women’s and men’s Intercontinental Cups are arguably BSWW’s most prestigious tournaments. The men’s tournament has run annually since 2011 and is regarded as second only to the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Invitations are directed at the best teams in terms of performance in their Confederation in a given year. The tournament hosts – each event has taken place in Dubai, UAE – and reigning world champions are always invited. Brazil Russia and Iran, and Brazil have dominated the tournament with four, four and three wins respectively. The Women’s Intercontinental Beach Soccer Cup took place in the lead up to the 2021 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. We must reiterate that we are acutely aware that our discussion to this point has focused in the main on men’s beach soccer. We have not elected to ignore women’s beach soccer, rather it is a result of extremely limited availability of material about an aspect of beach soccer that, while developing rapidly, is in its comparative infancy. There is a great deal of optimism around the speed and spread of its development. Women’s beach soccer Unlike association football, where the women’s game has been banned, badly treated, and hidden from the mainstream (see McGowan et al., 2023; Newsham, 2014; Tate, 2013; Williams, 2003, 2007), women’s beach soccer appears on first glance to have very little history. This may be as a result of several periods of exclusion from Brazilian national sporting structures in the early twentieth century (Capucim e Silva & Bonfim, 2022) and the later prohibition of women footballers in Brazil (1941–1979) (Elsey & Nadel, 2019; Goellner, 2005; Votre & Mourão, 2003). Similar situations occurred in England where women’s teams were informally forming and playing regularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As such, when the respective bans were removed, we see an explosion of documented activity (see for example, Soares de Almeida, 2019; Soares de Almeida & Rodrigues de Almeida, 2020; Williams, 2003, 2007). Despite appalling exclusionary social stigmatisation, discrimination, and abuse (see for example, Goldblatt, 2014; Knijnik, 2013, 2015; Knijnik & Costa, 2022; Knijnik & Garton, 2022; Wood, 2018), Brazilian women’s football experienced an intense period of growth. Anecdotal evidence suggests women practised beach soccer, alongside association football, in the 1980s in Rio de Janeiro (Morel & Salles, 2006; see Chapter 4). Almost 40 years later, in 2019, the first Brazilian women’s national beach soccer team would be formed. Their immediate impact on the world stage – they were runners up in their first international tournament in Paraguay in their first season – suggests the standard of their play had already attained a high standard before they engaged in the professional circuit (CONMEBOL.com, 2019). This view is supported in the success of the women’s beach soccer team at Radar Sports Club, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro (Soares de Almeida, 2014) and more recent descriptions of play from the first Brazilian Women’s Beach Soccer Cup in 2019 (BSWW, 2019).

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 55 The first records of women’s beach soccer we found are the results of a 2009 friendly between Switzerland and Germany (11-4) in the Swiss city of Basel, which are accompanied by over ten years of match results, mostly friendlies involving teams from Europe, though there are limited records of matches in Asia and North America (Cruikshank, n.d.). The 2016 women’s Euro Beach Soccer Cup is likely the first professional tournament. The tournament took place in Carcavelos, Portugal. The teams were split into two groups. Group A featured the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. England, Greece and Switzerland made up Group B. Spain defeated Switzerland in the final; Portugal finished third (Cruikshank, n.d.). This is an important tournament in the development of women’s beach soccer: its scale was new to women’s beach soccer; it provided proof of concept for further development (an aspect demanded of women’s sport that is taken for granted in men’s equivalents), and it coincided with the beginnings of the burgeoning presence of women’s sport we see in the mainstream today (Toffoletti & Palmer, 2019). We know of women’s and co-ed competitions at junior and senior amateur levels in the US (M. Whalen & L. Bland, personal correspondence, January 23, 2023; C. Lemay, personal correspondence, February 8, 2023). We note the US Women’s Beach Soccer National Team (USWBSNT) forming at their first ever training camp in preparation for their appearance at the women’s beach soccer tournament in the 2019 Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) World Beach Games (US Soccer, 2019). The eight-team women’s beach soccer tournament was staged in Qatar and included qualification competitions in three confederations – CAF, CONCACAF and UEFA. The US played in Group B with England, Paraguay (who were invited), and Russia. Group A was comprised of teams from Brazil (invited), Cabo Verde, Mexico, and European champions, Spain. Spain continued their form to become ANOC World Beach Games Champions when they defeated England in the final. There is much to learn about this event, which at once highlighted the exponential growth in the women’s game between 2016 and 2019 and provided a much-needed benchmark for the quality women’s beach soccer had attained given the opportunity, a platform for elite level professional participation, and a highly visible model for encouragement. It is equally heartening to see the women’s game gain traction in numerous regional BSWW competitions. The Women’s Euro Beach Soccer League (WEBSL), which transitioned out of its forerunner, the Women’s Beach Soccer Cup (2016–2019), is about to enter its third season (previous seasons took place in 2020 and 2022), which will double as the qualification process for the women’s beach soccer tournament at this year’s iteration of the European Games. In addition, BSWW facilitated delivery of the annual Women’s Intercontinental Beach Soccer Cup held in Moscow in 2021. The tournament comprised of four teams: the hosts, Brazil (winners), Spain, and the US (BSWW, 2021). Alongside the 2022 Intercontinental Cup, BSWW facilitated simultaneous delivery of the men’s and women’s beach soccer Mundialitos in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Spain. The Spaniards won the tournament and then

56  Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context confirmed their status as the best in Europe by defeating Italy in the 2022 WEBSL Super-final. The calendar of women’s beach soccer tournaments and matches for 2022 was the busiest on record (Cruikshank, n.d.). The year opened with the El Salvador Beach Soccer Cup in San Luis La Herradura with the host nation taking on Argentina, the Bahamas, and competition winners, the USWBSNT. Later in the year the USWBSNT would participate in a three match test series against Paraguay for the Asunción Cup. Paraguay won all three matches. The Bahamas hosted the Bahamas Beach Soccer Cup and played Turks & Caicos Islands and Trinidad & Tobago, which the latter won. European teams illustrated the reason for their strengths participating in the EBSL, the Mundialito, and the ANOC World Beach Games Qualifiers as well as a spread of friendlies. Brazil defeated England in the final of the Neom Games and a number of club level competitions took place around the world. Some culminated in the 2022 invitational women’s World Winners’ Cup in Cagliari, Italy, which was played out by top club teams from El Salvador, Japan and two teams from Poland (BSWW, 2022). Anecdotal evidence suggests this tournament, which first occurred in 2016, may have been a precursor to the EBSL (BSWW, 2015), this however warrants further investigation. Two visible shifts suggest growth and continuity and allude to the manifestation of the will to develop the contemporary women’s game: an exponential increase in women’s fixtures and tournament opportunities since 2016; and the escalation in frequency with which those competitions are simultaneously aligned with and managed alongside men’s beach soccer. These changes allude to rapid change and speak to a great deal of optimism. Conclusion In the last thirty years beach soccer has developed into a professional sport with global reach and, at the same time, become an established catalyst for engagement in many communities that sit outside FIFA’s framework of football governance, none more so than the world’s largest beach soccer event at the Hamptons Road Complex, Virginia Beach. The histories of beach soccer globally, when placed side by side, reveal a range of approaches, tensions, divergences, competing interests, community engagement, and commercial opportunity. In Soccer in the Sand and the NASSC, sizable pockets of beach soccer crowds and engagement remain beyond the reach and interests of the professionalised circuit evolving under the guidance of BSWW and subsequently FIFA’s influence. BSWW have managed in two decades to imprint a formal professional football code as part of suite of football products offered by the majority of the national football associations who hold FIFA membership. They were instrumental in the establishment of the biennial FIFA World Cup tournament – the 2025 tournament in the Seychelles will mark twenty years of the prestigious international competition. On the surface there is distance between BSWW and FIFA. FIFA established the FIFA Beach Soccer S.L. (FBSSL) to take carriage of the then annual

Beach Soccer, Histories, and Context 57 competition. There is now an established World Cup and FIFA Confederation qualifiers that BSWW support alongside an expanding raft of women’s and men’s tournaments at international and club levels that are based on timing, team and player availability and access to resources. While FIFA and BSWW are separate organisations, their relationship is symbiotic. These distinctions are important as we unpack the histories in the chapters that follow. BSWW continue to build on those tried and tested frameworks put in place by their founders that have become the basis of a football product offered by many of the national football associations who hold FIFA membership. It is possible to argue that to get to this point BSC’s methods of operation were antithetical to the spirit of the pelada and those social characteristics at the heart of the game. There is also an argument here that speaks to the classbased exploitation of ‘a natural resource’, those participating in what began and continued to proliferate as a working-class pursuit. At the same time the sport now has a secure position and significant recognition within world football. Nations without the resources or infrastructure are in a position to send a team to an international tournament and support a domestic professional competition. Other nations that would not otherwise be able to do so are able to host a FIFA tournament. Of all the variants of football, beach soccer is arguably the most marketing friendly: the game’s structural breaks, twelve minutes periods, acrobatic nature and frequent high goal counts attract media attention, make livestreaming easy to promote, and provide excellent content for distribution via social media platforms. Its cultural heritage, the celebratory musical accompaniment, and ‘celebrity’ participants – former association football players – alongside those expert players remain integral to its popularity. Questions remain. BSWW is a commercial organisation, their primary objective is to grow the game. There are tensions in the spaces between accessibility and profit, community benefit and exploitation. The neglect of the histories of women’s beach soccer is an important matter for further research. The Brazilian women’s beach soccer team, which formed in 2019, and the Brazilian men’s team, the first world champions in 1995, won their respective competitions at the recent 2022 Neom Games. The nation’s dominance of the sport they invented is hardly surprising. It is also the subject of Chapter 4: Beach Soccer in Brazil. References Araújo, D., Fonseca, C., Davids, K., Garganta, J., Volossovitch, A., Brandao, R., & Krebs, R. (2010). The role of ecological constraints on expertise development. Talent Development & Excellence, 2(2), 165–179. Bale, J. (2002). Imagined Olympians: Body culture and colonial representation in Rwanda (Vol. 3). University of Minnesota Press. Bale, J., & Cronin, M. (2020). Introduction: Sport and postcolonialism. In Sport and postcolonialsm (pp. 1–13). Routledge (Original work published 2003).

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Chapter Four Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994

Introduction Stating that football is central to Brazilian culture is simply inadequate. Many countries claim an obsession with the sport. Very few can speak to the same level of influence on the construction of a national identity or the ways the game has impacted a century of a culture’s history (see Kittleson, 2014; Wisnik, 2013). For Brazilians, football appears to be woven into the fabric of life, more important than water. The Seleção Nacional, the Brazilian men’s national team, are the only team to have played in all 22 men’s World Cup finals – the latter stages of the tournament, which is hosted in one or two countries (three in 2026) and only includes the teams that qualify. Radio coverage of the final of the 1958 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) men’s World Cup disrupted law courts and saw the senate suspend sessions when representatives left the floor to listen to the match (Mulliken, 1958). Their exit at the quarter-final stage in the 1982 edition of the tournament incited a wave of national mourning (Hoge, 1982). We will not discuss the 2014 tournament. This love of football is so enmeshed in Brazilian culture (Bellos, 2014) that a successful career (in just one of its variants) will make an exceptional footballer a national hero (Ankersen, 2013). Pelé, Socrates, and Ronaldo stand out amid many examples (see for example, Atkins, 2013; Bandyopadhyay, 2017). Sadly, while Marta’s extraordinary career has been celebrated (Kessler & Goellner, 2021), the same cannot be said of most of the women who play. The stories of Brazilian women footballers have increased in the last two decades (see Wood, 2018), but they are still rare. The Brazilian women’s national beach soccer team formed in 2019 and are already one of the very best in the world, yet their international status garners very little recognition. Brazil is known for other things: the Amazon, rainforests, and the Carnaval (Goldblatt, 2014; Uehara et al., 2021). The country is well-known for its recent political challenges (Milhorance, 2022), devastation of the Amazon (Deutsch & Fletcher, 2022; Hope, 2019), and an array of socio-economic issues, including corruption, inequality, and poverty (Fogel, 2019; Menezes & Barbosa, 2021; Uehara et al., 2021). These tensions, fault lines, cut across any narrative related to the development of football and the growth of its DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-4

Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 67 sand-based form, including the histories of Brazilian beach soccer between 1923 and 1994 presented in this chapter. The City of Rio de Janeiro is the original home of beach soccer. It is where its invention and development occurred, it is where the first beach soccer World Championship and World Cup took place, where the men’s and women’s national beach soccer teams – the most successful in the world – established their dominance. It hosts most of Brazil’s beach soccer – the sport is popular in only a handful of locations on the coastline of this geographically, economically, demographically vast country. Before we discuss beach soccer, we situate the sport within the broader football landscape; we therefore begin with contexts of football and its histories in Brazil. Football in Brazil The Seleção Nacional have won the FIFA men’s World Cup five times, the Copa América nine times and the now defunct FIFA Federations Cup four times. They are FIFA’s most successful men’s team. The team’s innovative, inventive, and generous approach to the 1958 World Cup is remarkable for the ways it was won as much as if not more than the winning of the trophy (see for example, Ball, 2008; Mulliken, 1958). It allowed the team’s star, Pelé, to speak directly to the prevailing racial discourse of 1950s Brazil (da Silva, 2014); crystalised a Brazilian national identity free of the bonds of a colonial sporting heritage; and instigated a fundamental reorientation of the way football would be played and viewed around the world (Goldblatt, 2014). The team established an aspirational blueprint for Brazilian football, which is often textualised (Lopes, 2000a), particularly by those outside Brazil (especially Europeans), as an explicit mode of cultural expression. This can, at times problematically and stereotypically, be related to the body and physical movement commonly associated with the nation’s identity and culture (such as samba and capoeira) (see for example, Demuru, 2014; Guedes, 2014). Football arrived in São Paulo during the European development of the modern game in 1894 (Bellos, 2014). The heralded moment of arrival is the introduction of the rules of the game by Charles Miller, the son of a Scottish engineer who had been sent to England for his schooling (see Bellos, 2014; Kittleson, 2014). Until the 1920s the men’s formal game was held under the custodianship of the affluent Europeans, predominantly British, German, and Italian immigrants (Bocketti, 2008; Levine, 1980), who sought to maintain its aristocratic, amateur status (Hamilton, 1998; Levine, 1980). Alongside championing European chic, they held a firm grip on club competition and organisation, with players selected from among a carefully considered and interconnected membership (Levin, 1980). At the same time, local interest among the working classes had grown exponentially: by 1919 the sport was played with such exuberance it was hailed by editors in local journals and being protested by citizens who feared the consequences to those held in its thrall (Donadio, 2011).

68  Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 By the mid-1920s football’s influence on Brazilian culture in its arts and literature (see Wood, 2019), and its sporting landscape was pervasive (Kittleson, 2014). Even as interest in the game bloomed in the streets, the restrictive structure of the organised game, described as amateurism and based on what was seen as an argument for refinement and morality, enabled establishment clubs to remain steadfast in the face of societal change (Goldblatt, 2014). The system ruptured in 1923 when Club de Regatas Vasco de Gama, founded in 1898 by Portuguese tradesmen and merchants, actively recruited black players and won the city championship (Levine, 1980). Vasco’s success led other clubs to imitation and even those most racist, classist clubs were eventually forced to buckle. These events and the development of the men’s game have been captured in detail in fascinating long-form creative non-fiction (Bellos, 2014; Goldblatt, 2014); anthologies (Curi, 2016; Fontes & de Hollanda, 2014; Knijnik & Costa, 2022; Knijnik & Garton, 2022); anthologies with an exhaustive bibliography (D’Angelo & Takara, 2019); in academic works that review, unpack, and draw out timelines from the historical to the present (Barreto, 2013; Kittleson, 2014; Lovisolo, 2012; Pereira, 2003; Wisnik, 2013); and in those that examine social, cultural and political aspects (see Bocketti, 2016; Levine, 1980; Mason, 1995; Wisnik, 2013), including issues of class (Daflon & Ballvé, 2004; Kittleson, 2014; Lopes, 1999), and ethnicity (Filho, 2021; Lopes, 2000a, 2000b; Oliveira-Monte, 2013). Research has been conducted on many more aspects of Brazilian football. There are examinations of the evolution of ‘the player’ as commercial entity, one that undertakes a process of development and growth for exploitation by the club for profit in the contemporaneous professional game (Damo, 2005). The exploitation of the club as product and positioned as leisure commodity, entertainment, for consumption rather than engagement is also examined (Pereira, 2003). Studies on street football in the Penha district of São Paulo considers the history of the game and the impacts of urbanisation on society through the lens of the pelada (Gonçalves, 2011; see also Uehara et al., 2018) – a more direct translation of ‘pelada’ would be ‘naked’, which infers a crude form of football stripped back to a ball or substitute object and people playing on the streets, courts, pitches, wherever they have the opportunity. Research on the differences and distinctions between these football modalities (Beverari, 2010), the inherent creativity in their practice outside of mainstream sport (Melo, 2014), and their inclusion or lack of within the curricula of high school level education programs (D'auria et al., 2022; Zaremba & Navarro, 2016) highlight the game’s popularity, the imbrication of football in Brazilian culture. Almost every aspect of the men’s game has or is being researched. In contrast, the hidden histories of Brazilian women’s football and its place on the sporting landscape (and the treatment of women across the broader spectrum of sport) have been under-served in research terms. That said, as has been noted by researchers in the field, while still not comparative to the body of work on men’s football, there has been a marked uptake in research on women’s football in the twenty-first century (see for example, Mourão &

Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 69 Morel, 2005; Wood, 2018). This work includes in-depth analysis of the history of women in Brazilian football since the game’s introduction to the country (Goellner, 2005); in the face of conservative societal pressure in the 1920s (Capucim e Silva & Bonfim, 2022; Mourão & Morel, 2005); in resistance to their prohibition from the sport between 1941 and 1979 (Elsey & Nadel, 2019; Freitas et al., 2019; Votre & Mourão, 2003); and in relation to the ban’s fundamental impacts on the structure and development of the women’s game (Costa, 2016; Goellner, 2005; Oliveira & Costa, 2010). Despite appalling exclusionary social stigmatisation, discrimination, and abuse (see for example, Goldblatt, 2014; Knijnik, 2013, 2015), women continued to organise and play matches in the 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s – the Museu do Futebol’s digital resource vibrantly celebrates these once hidden histories (2018) – so when the ban was revoked the women’s game experienced an intense period of proliferation (Goldblatt, 2014). Brazilian women’s football has since undertaken ongoing development and been the focus of academic discussion related to gender and participation (see for example, Soares de Almeida, 2014, 2019; Soares de Almeida & Rodrigues de Almeida, 2020; Souza et al., 2019). Research examines the lack of media visibility and representation of women footballers (da Costa, 2014, 2021; Kessler & Goellner, 2021; Mourão & Morel, 2005); and the lack of fixtures and support from often incredibly well-resourced, widely respected, and supported clubs who continue to shortchange women’s football (Goellner & Kessler, 2018; Kessler & Goellner, 2021). In 2011, Santos dismantled their women’s football set-up to reinforce and increase their financial offer to retain men’s footballer, Neymar Jr. The estimated total operating budget for the women’s team was 1.5 million reais per year; Neymar Jr’s wage offer was approximately 1 million reais per month (Meuren, 2012). Two years later, Barcelona purchased Neymar Jr for a fee of approximately 60 million euros (when 1 euro was equivalent to around 2.70 to 2.90 reais) (Lowe, 2013). The women’s team were reintroduced in 2015; their treatment, however, would and could not be considered equitable to the men’s set-up at Marta and Pelé’s former club (Reuters, 2019). Research on the Brazilian women’s game has considered the roles of and spaces for women as fans (Franzini, 2005); as players and referees (professional and amateur); as football club administrators (Souza et al., 2019); and as writers and academics (Wood, 2018). A critical comparative analysis of the Brazilian and United States Women’s National (USWNT) teams highlighted the benefits of greater socio-cultural and financial investment in women’s football (Balardin et al., 2018). This is expedient where research on the international context provides rich incentive for development and growth in professionalisation of women’s football in Brazil, from political, legal, social, and economic perspectives would be beneficial to those in the game. Football’s status as the most popular sport in Brazil, as it is interwoven with ideologies related to national identity, race, class, and gender, has dominated the country’s print and screen media for over a century (Gastaldo, 2014; Vimieiro, 2017). Research on the phenomena of women’s football in the

70  Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 media tends to be situated within more recent timeframes (Votre & Mourão, 2003). While there is much to be discussed on these and related issues, this study’s focus is not association football histories. This text seeks to uncover those histories and examine issues related to beach soccer. Like football, the beach, especially the Copacabana, is lodged in globally northern minds as a metonym for the Brazilian way of life (Bellos, 2014). The Copacabana is integral to the culture of Rio de Janeiro, providing constancy, community and a place for activity, exercise, participation, and since the close of the First World War, a site for sun-bathing and relaxation (Donadio, 2011). As illustrated in the collected histories of beach soccer between the 1920s and the 1990s, it has also been a site for contention, competition, and commercialisation. Beach soccer research related to Brazil is limited and as such confined to a narrow range of topics. A sports science study has attempted to diagnose morpho-functional characteristics of game positions (Fazolo et al., 2005). Social studies have raised and addressed important questions concerned with beach soccer communities: as a mechanism for socialisation (Ferreira, 2017); as a vehicle to study public use of the beach as public space (Nori, 1998); to focus on a specific group (of men over 40) (Oliveira & Osborne, 2018); and in studies that centre on gender (Morel & Salles, 2006). There are those that consider the sport as part of a tourism strategy (Fratucci et al., 2014), and those that ask why educational institutions are unable to incorporate beach soccer in curricula, despite abundant evidence of its capacity as a tool for engagement (Oliveira & Costa, 2022). The next section highlights the linear narrative of beach soccer’s sporting histories in Brazil. Beach soccer in Brazil There are multiple assertions around the temporal and spatial origins of men’s beach soccer. Match play in Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s is one suggested starting point (Morel & Salles, 2006). This is earlier than the 1990s timeline highlighted by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) (see Chapter 3). Another source states the 1990s as a point of origin (without reference to BSWW) but, in naming Brazil, is less geographically specific (Fazolo et al., 2005). The national beach soccer administrative body, the Confederação de Beach Soccer do Brasil (CBSB) [Brazilian Beach Soccer Confederation] take the diplomatic approach of acknowledging the 1990s as a timeframe without nominating a site of practice (CBSB, n.d.). Most sources posit an earlier commencement. British sailors playing football on Brazilian shorelines in 1864 is noted as a first contact instance of football in Brazil (Levine, 1980); if a sand-based surface is their likely point of disembarkation, then technically this might be the first beach soccer, though this would be contentious. The city of Rio de Janeiro claim, with some authority and recent jurisdiction in a public bill of rights (Law No. 2102/2016) that beach soccer emerged in the 1920s (Bastos, 2016). This is where and when football’s rapid and expansive growth begins in Brazil (see for example, Bellos, 2014; Donadio, 2011;

Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 71 Goldblatt, 2014; Wisnik, 2013), and coincides with the post-war popularisation of sun-bathing – the Brazilian bourgeois imitation of European privileging of white skin – and non-water beach activities (Donadio, 2011). Paulo Donadio’s meticulous research of contemporaneous laws and newspapers of the Cariocas, the residents of Rio de Janeiro, places the origins of beach soccer on Copacabana between 1923 and the 1927 formation of Liga de Amadores de Foot-ball na Praia [Amateur League of Soccer on Sand], which reformed in 1928 as the Liga de Amadores de Futebol na Areia (LAFA) (2010). These were for the most part 11-a-side matches that mirrored the association game (Bellos, 2014). Prior to LAFA, the sport had been encouraged on the beach so long as its participants did not disturb sunbathers and swimmers – beach use was demarked with posts to separate activities from the beach soccer players who were considered uncouth (Donadio, 2011). The LAFA was the catalyst for the formation of club teams populated by the young men of affluent families; tournaments and reports in the local press soon followed. Reports of matches between teams from Copacabana and Icaraí and other beach locations mark the sport’s growing popularity and the inceptive foundations for its assemblage of beach soccer organisations in the 1960s. Beach soccer of the late 1920s is distinguished by friendly organised competition, the only tensions arising from disgruntled bathers grieving fractured peace. Beach soccer of the 1930s began with prohibition enacted by a severe local police force. When the sport returned in 1932, it did so with a more serious and combative tone; matches and competitions were often disrupted by altercations among players and officials (Donadio, 2011). Later in the decade, when crowded beach soccer matches were deemed too disruptive to bathers the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Henrique Dodsworth, moved to ban the sport; the players networked with powerful celebrity figures in the vaunted beach volleyball community and delivered a 50,000-signature petition to outmanoeuvre him (Bellos, 2014). By the beginning of the 1940s rapidly changing demographics brought about by vertiginous growth in Rio de Janeiro’s population saw beaches overwhelmed with sporting activity, including the popular beach soccer games. The irruption induced complex social tensions. Minor class conflicts occurred alongside the formation of new alliances. Where the game was dominated by the affluent set, more inclusive teams (based on ability) formed to play informal matches, echoing to a degree those changes in association football. These practices antagonised those in formal organised clubs (Donadio, 2011). Knowledge of these developments is limited and would benefit from further research. We do know they did not halt progress. As evidence of the continuation of beach soccer during the period, we note the work of local photographer, Thomas Farkas, whose collection of black and white images of players and empty goalposts taken in 1946-49 are regularly exhibited (see Poynor, 2015). The images reflect goalposts that have clearly been on the beach for some time prior to their capture. Anecdotal evidence also includes images of local low-paid workers playing soccer on Copacabana; the image description

72  Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 notes the match taking place within sight of some of Rio de Janeiro’s most expensive accommodation (Deutsch, 1950). There are personal accounts of beach soccer competitions in the 1950s when formal leagues and informal matches dominated the beaches (Curran, 2012). There is evidence of local inter-neighbourhood rivalries and long-running clubs, including Pracinha, Ouro Preto, and Juventus (Bastos, 2016), participated in competitions in Copacabana and Ipanema where the standards of beach soccer had begun to attract professional players (Bellos, 2014). Substantial codification of the game took place across the late 1950s and 1960s. More than one tournament is reported to have taken place in 1957 (FIFA.com, 2020; beachsoccer.com, n.d.a.). Myriad informal matches took place too – there is rare footage of a range of examples from 1966 (eFootage, 2019). To unify the officiation and governance of the multitude of leagues and competitions playing out on the city’s beaches, the Federation of Beach Sports of the State of Rio de Janeiro was established in 1960 (Bastos, 2016). In the 1970s, there is photographic evidence of the former England captain, Bobby Moore, playing football on Copacabana (Daily Mirror, 1971). In the background of this series of images there are multiple matches of beach soccer playing out. Pitch markers (ribbons) lined the sands of Rio’s beach front from Botafogo to Leblon in the 1980s; this is also when the first evidence of women’s beach soccer emerges. With the ban lifted, Brazilian women exercised their right to play football wherever they could and this included the beach (Morel & Salles, 2006). In 1981, through the guidance of entrepreneur, Eurico Lyra Filho, the Radar Sports Club formed Brazil’s most successful women’s team of the era. They grew out of the American Denim store women’s beach soccer team in Copacabana (Soares de Almeida, 2014). In their first two seasons (1981 and 1982), they won city-wide women’s beach soccer tournaments in Rio de Janeiro (Fernandes, 2016). The team became the basis of the club’s indoor and 11-a-side teams (Soares de Almeida, 2014) The latter won the Rio de Janeiro women’s Division each year between 1983 and 1988 and Brazilian women’s Championship between 1984 and 1988; in addition, they won and participated in several other national and international club competitions (Fernandes, 2016). After winning the Torneio Brasileiro de Clubes in 1989, the squad represented Brazil as the women’s national team; their success is attributed to their continuing deep-seated connection to their Copacabana community throughout the period of their unprecedented success (Soares de Almeida, 2014). In 1993, the compact version of the game played in the United States was introduced to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and quickly replaced the 11-a-side matches as the primary form of beach soccer (Bellos, 2014). A series of exhibition matches tested the short format devised by the sports media agency, Koch Tavares. We would highlight a significant degree of similarity in the US version – adopted by BSWW (beachsoccer.com, n.d.b.) and FIFA (FIFA. com, 2021) – and the Koch Tavares version (kochtavares.com, 1998). The key tenets of game play are: match winner is the team that scored the most goals;

Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 73 teams are comprised of five players, including the goalkeeper; game time is three periods of 12 minutes; substitutions are unlimited; there are no draws in beach soccer matches – periods of extra time are played then the result is determined with a penalty shoot-out; all infractions are penalised with a direct free kick; and players are not permitted to play in footwear. The only difference is the current form allows for additional players in the squad: BSWW state a maximum 12-member squad, Koch Tavares stipulated three to five substitute players and a maximum squad of ten. This was a departure from both the organised 11-a-side matches and the pelada. TV Globo and Koch Tavares then created and delivered the 1994 I Mundialito de Beach Soccer – the forerunner for the World Championship (see Chapter 3). A tournament win for the home team, large crowds in attendance, and national television coverage, particularly footage featuring a spectacular and widely reported bicycle kick scored by Cláudio Adão (CBSB, n.d.), propelled the short format into the Brazilian mainstream, instantly breaking ground for the 1995 tournament, which would eventually become the FIFA men’s Beach Soccer World Cup. Koch Tavares heralded their event as a great success (kochtavares.com, 1998), which was warranted; their efforts established an international competition, and perhaps more importantly secured the short game’s place in the Brazilian football culture. Following successive annual World Championships (1995–1998, see Chapter 3), several Brazilian state football federations combined their beach soccer resources, gained affiliation from 22 others, and formed the CBSB in Rio de Janeiro (CBSB, n.d.). The organisation has since been responsible for administering and organising interstate, national or international competitions in partnership with other federations. Thirty years later beach soccer remains popular on Copacabana and in other coastal cities and towns. The game has changed. The distinction between those commercialised competitions – novelty beach soccer tournaments organised as preliminary build-up events in the lead up to the 2014 FIFA men’s World Cup hosted by Brazil (Fadul, 2014) – and those less formal, community-based versions is important. Examples include Circuito Paulista de Beach Soccer in Santos, which is aimed at young people and supported by the local city council (Prefeitura de Santos, 2018); and the call for teams for a regular women’s beach soccer tournament organised by the Navegantes City Council in Santa Catarina (Prefeitura de Navegantes, 2012). As if to indicate how much and at once how little cultural change has occurred in the sport, an anticipatory report on the 2018 Espírito Santo Beach Soccer State Championships for women and men in Vitória offered a preview of the men’s competition, including a complete breakdown and description of star players and team strengths and weaknesses; discussion on the women’s tournament, which was smaller, was afforded two short sentences on when and where the competition would take place (ES HOJE, 2018). The Brazilian women’s national beach soccer team formed a year later and made immediate impact on the world stage. In the 2019 Liga Evolución de Fútbol Playa Femenino in Paraguay, Confederación

74  Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 Sudamericana de Fútbol’s (CONMEBOL) [the South American Football Confederation] first ever Women’s International Beach Soccer competition, they were runners up and won bronze at the 2019 World Beach Games in Qatar. Post-COVID-19, they won the 2021 Women’s Intercontinental Beach Soccer Cup and the 2022 Neom Games tournament. This consistent form at such high standards suggests commensurate engagement in the sport prior to their entry to the professional circuit. Conclusion Football is Brazil’s most popular sport, and beach soccer is an extremely popular variant. Its development contextualises the emergence of the professional game we know today, which is organised and promoted by BSWW and FIFA. The realisation of its contemporary form, its transformation, is a story of longevity with history and friction and success. Disputes on points of origin and claims to invention are integral to its growth. By its nature beach soccer is situated between leisure activity, competitive practice (Oliveira & Osborne, 2018), and, we would argue, commercial enterprise. These states of being are fraught with and highlight tensions between its formal and informal application. The women’s game is relatively new, emerging more fully post-proscription in the 1980s. Academic research related to beach soccer in Brazil is more recent (see for example, Nori, 1998). It is not widely practiced in Brazil, occurring in the main in coastal towns and cities, such as Navegantes in Santa Catarina, Vitória in Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and São Pedro da Aldeia in Rio de Janeiro, and the city of Santos in São Paulo. Though less common, there is evidence of fixed pitches inland, in Amazonas, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás (Bellos, 2014), and in the city of Curitiba in Paraná for example (Ramos, 2014). Like grass-based football, its moments can capture the national imagination – Cláudio Adão’s bicycle kick goal is just one example – and speak to social issues present in Brazilian culture. For instance, how have the Brazilian women’s national beach soccer team become so good so quickly? Or is it simply a matter that their game has been hidden from public view or awareness? This, like many other aspects of beach soccer in Brazil, warrant further investigation. It is no coincidence that the women’s and men’s national teams are among the best and most accomplished in their respective international competitions and no surprise that Brazilian beach soccer’s capacity for spectacle has become such a rich contemporary export. The importance of Brazil’s enthusiastic uptake of the game cannot be understated and their competitive position within the world’s rankings speaks to that contribution. Acknowledgement We would like to express our gratitude and acknowledge the support and guidance of football researcher, Arthur Passos. His generosity, patience and diligent work enabled richer insight of the literature of Brazilian football development in Portuguese.

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80  Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 Oliveira, A. de B., & Osborne, R. (2018). “Deixa Amor”: A Cultura do Futebol de Praia na Perspectiva de um Grupo de Lazer. [“Leave Love”: The culture of beach soccer from the perspective of a Leisure Group]. LICERE - Revista Do Programa De Pós-graduação Interdisciplinar Em Estudos Do Lazer [Journal of the Interdisciplinar Post-graduate Program in Leisure Studies], 21(3), 1–27. https://doi.org/ 10.35699/1981-3171.2018.1861 Oliveira-Monte, E. (2013). Blacks versus whites self-denomination, soccer, and race representations in Brazil. Luso-Brazilian Review, 50(2), 76–92. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/lbr.2013.0039 Pereira, J. A. O. (2003). Futebol, de esporte amador a negócio de entretenimento e lazer em uma sociedade midiatizada. [Football, from an amateur sport to an entertainment and leisure business in a mediatized society]. Dissertação de Mestrado. [Master’s Dissertation, Business School]. Escola de Administração, Universidade Federal da Bahia. https://ludopedio.org.br/biblioteca/futebol-de-esporte-amador-a-negociode-entretenimento-e-lazer-em-uma-sociedade-midiatizada/. Poynor, R. (2015, December 15). Exposure: Copacabana Beach by Thomas Farkas. Design Observer. https://designobserver.com/feature/exposure-copacobana-beachby-thomas-farkas/39146 Prefeiture da Navegantes. (2012, June 19). 3° Torneio de Beach Soccer Feminino acontece domingo (29) [3rd Women’s Beach Soccer Tournament takes place on Sunday(29)]. navegantes.sc.gov.br. https://www.navegantes.sc.gov.br/noticia/ 7373/esporte-3-torneio-de-beach-soccer-feminino-acontece-domingo Prefeiture da Santos. (2018, February 1). Arena Verão tem jogos de beach soccer gratuitos [Arena Verão has free beach soccer games]. santos.sp.gov.br. https://www. santos.sp.gov.br/?q=noticia/arena-verao-tem-jogos-de-beach-soccer-gratuitos Ramos, L. M. (2014, April 23). Praça do Carmo pode voltar a ser palco do Beach Soccer [Praça do Carmo could once again be the stage for Beach Soccer]. Communicare. https://www.portalcomunicare.com.br/praca-do-carmo-pode-voltara-ser-palco-do-beach-soccer/ Reuters. (2019, July 17). ‘This is the reality’: Santos women’s football team sleep in hotel lobby. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jul/ 17/this-is-the-reality-brazilian-womens-football-team-sleep-in-hotel-lobby Soares de Almeida, C. (2014). O Clube da Rua Mascarenhas de Morais: Memórias do Futebol de Mulheres em Copacabana. [The Mascarenhas de Morais Street Club: Memories of Women’s Football in Copacabana], Ponto Urbe, 14. https://doi. org/10.4000/pontourbe.1433 Soares de Almeida, C. (2019). The FIFA statute and gender equality in football: Stories and contexts of Women’s football in Brazil. FuLiA/UFMG, 4(1), 72–87. https:// doi.org/10.17851/2526-4494.4.1.72-87 Soares de Almeida, C., & Rodrigues de Almeida, T. (2020). “Deve ou não deve o football invadir os domínios das saias?”: histórias do futebol de mulheres no Brasil. [“Should or shouldn’t football invade the domain of skirts?”: Stories of women’s football in Brazil]. Revista Eletrônica de Ciências Sociais [Digital Journal of Social Sciences], 31. https://doi.org/10.34019/1981-2140.2020.30645 Souza, L. M. de., Maux, A. A. B., & Rebouças, M. S. S. (2019). Impedimento? Possibilidades de relação entre a mulher e o futebol. [Off-side? Possibilities of relationship between women and football]. Gestalt Approach Magazine, 25(3), 282–293. https://doi.org/10.18065/RAG.2019v25n3.7

Beach Soccer in Brazil 1923–1994 81 Uehara, L., Button, C., Araújo, D., Renshaw, I., & Davids, K. (2018). The role of informal, unstructured practice in developing football expertise: The case of Brazilian Pelada. Journal of Expertise, 1(3), 162–180. https://www.journalofexpertise.org/ articles/volume1_issue3/JoE_2018_1_3_Uehara.pdf Uehara, L., Button, C., Saunders, J., Araújo, D., Falcous, M., & Davids, K. (2021). Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 16(3), 622–635. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747954120976271 Vimieiro, A. C. (2017). Sports journalism, supporters and new technologies: Challenging the usual complicity between media and football institutions. Digital Journalism, 5(5), 567–586. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2016.1263161 Votre, S., & Mourão, L. (2003). Women’s football in Brazil: Progress and problems. Soccer & Society, 4(2-3), 254–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970512331390935 Wisnik, J. M. (2013). Veneno remédio–o futebol e o Brasil. [Poison medicine – football and Brazil]. Editora Companhia das Letras. (Original work published 2008). Wood, D. (2018). The beautiful game? Hegemonic masculinity, women and football in Brazil and Argentina. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 37(5), 567–581. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12633 Wood, D. (2019). The history of football and literature in Brazil (1908–1938). Estudos Históricos (Rio de Janeiro), 32, 744–764. https://doi.org/10.1590/S2178149420190003000010 Zaremba, F., & Navarro, A. C. (2016). Football and similar in their curriculum of the school year 9 of basic education in physical education discipline: A relationship through learning theory and practice/O FUTEBOL e SEUS SIMILARES NO CURRICULO ESCOLAR DO 9[degrees] ANO DO ENSINO FUNDAMENTAL NA DISCIPLINA DE EDUCACAO FISICA: a APRENDIZAGEM POR MEIO DA RELACAO TEORIA e PRATICA. Revista Brasileira de Futsal e Futebol (Brazilian Journal of Futsal and Association Football), 8(31SI), 348+. https://link.gale. com/apps/doc/A536244269/IFME?u=anon~350b2b87&sid=googleScholar&xid= 82c32e65

Chapter Five Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012

Introduction Like many aspects of beach soccer, the role of the goalkeeper diverges significantly from its footballing counterpart. Tournament organisers estimate a shot on goal occurs every 30 seconds of a 36-minute beach soccer match – one academic study counted 92 shots in a single match, including 14 goals among 52 shots on target (within the rectangular frame created by the goalposts) (Scarfone et al., 2015). Even where 40 shots missed the target, the goalkeeper, unlike their grass-based equivalent, is constantly active. The beach soccer ratio of goals per game is often more than three times greater than the ratio at a men’s international football tournament (8.6 to 2.6 goals per match; see Lastella et al., 2020; Muazu Musa et al., 2019). The goalkeeper must be prepared to initiate attacks and distribute the ball accordingly – the same academic study also counted 70 returns (a pass from the goalkeeper), 55 served to teammates, and 15 captured by opponents (Scarfone et al., 2015). As soon as the keeper has the ball, they must turn the game and exploit the opponent’s attacking formation, particularly the sequence of play that led to the opponent’s shot, which is likely to leave a defence exposed. This can occur in association football, but the initiation of an attack will usually take at least two or three passes through two or three players to execute. The comparatively short pitch (36.5 m × 27.5 m versus 105 m × 68 m) and relatively large goals (7.32 m × 2.44 m versus 5.5 m × 2.2 m) of beach soccer are designed to maximise goal-scoring opportunities (FIFA.com, 2021). Thus, the beach soccer goalkeeper is a very busy defender, an expert and inventive distributor of the ball (akin to a dynamic midfield player, or number eight, in the grass-based game), and arguably the most agile (in movement and thinking) player on the pitch. In responding to the demands of various levels of community, and those pressures related to commercial and professional events and competitions, we argue US beach soccer organisations are most like the goalkeeper. The United States (US) version offers a remarkable view of a football related sport designed in and for the American sporting landscape. Contemporary beach soccer is based on a commercial venture devised in Los Angeles, California, in DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-5

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 83 1992 (see Chapter 3). The basic rules (re)drafted by tournament creator, Giancarlo Signorini, are now embraced by beach soccer communities, including those responsible for the international governance of the game – Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Under the umbrella of United States Soccer Federation (USSF) or US Soccer, the national governing body for football, the US Women’s and Men’s Beach Soccer National Teams (USWBSNT, USMBNST) participate in BSWW and FIFA tournaments; however, most US-based events and competitions occur outside the world governing bodies’ expansive domains. Not surprisingly, these events see the greatest variation of match play and approach to the code: from local club-based fund-raising initiatives with a narrow focus to expansive remunerative franchise models serving a range of communities; and from regular annual tournaments to a professional circuit that sees players’ supplement their income with cash prizes. In this diversity and in its development, US beach soccer closely reflects the commercialisation process that occurred in US grass-based football in the 1960s when promoters and investors sought to differentiate, appropriate, and reshape the world’s most popular sport in the image of other popular US sports. USSF now aligns with the footballing world and, in women’s football, is regarded as a powerhouse. US beach soccer, a derivation of the matches played on Copacabana for 70 years, exemplifies the commercialisation, the differentiation, appropriation, redefining and reshaping of a sport into its American image. This chapter builds on Chapter 3 in its examination of the origins of beach soccer in the US and its development in the second decade of the twenty-first century when the most common modes of competition delivery were established. To present, or capture, related histories, and the broader, contemporaneous landscape of US beach soccer, we consider a carefully selected range of tournaments. These tournaments have been selected where they represent the range of models of participation, approaches to beach soccer in the US, and are reflective of reasonable access to materials. This includes interviews with those directly involved, which enabled the gathering of qualitative data (De Jonckheere & Vaughn, 2019); and examination of available documentation and reports, for the application of the tenets of textual (Belsey, 2013; Hartley, 1999; McKee, 2011) and thematic analyses (see Joffe & Yardley, 2004) to interrogate the work and organise the parts into a cohesive linear order. Before we consider points of origin, we contextualise the football landscape in the US, where TV audiences and stadium attendances for the domestic professional club competition has grown (Gerke, 2019). This overview includes a review of the historical development of men’s and women’s soccer. For clarification, we refer to association football as football, or grass-based football, where the use of soccer, its most common nomenclature in the parts of the US, might be confused with beach soccer.

84  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 Soccer in the US Baseball was America’s ‘pastime’ until the 1960s. American Football, or Gridiron, has since become the ‘most popular sport’, woven as it is into national identity and culture (Markovits & Hellerman, 2014). Yet soccer (football) has a longer history in the US (Abrams, 1995; Apostolov, 2012; Goldblatt, 2006). While there is a view that soccer is overshadowed by other sporting codes (Blumberg & Markovits, 2021; Markovits & Hellerman, 1995, 2014), the round ball game has maintained its position on the US sporting landscape since the 1860s (Abrams, 1995). It has certainly experienced volatile changes in its most visible national levels, but football has sustained high degrees of continuous interest in a number of regions: in the North-East in Philadelphia (Reck & Dick, 2015), New Jersey (Allaway, 2009), and Massachusetts (Apostolov, 2012; Bunk, 2011); on the West Coast in San Francisco (Van Rheenen, 2009); and the Midwest in Saint Louis (Apostolov, 2012), and Chicago (Trouille, 2009). Football’s extensive US history commenced in the lead up to the game’s codification in London in 1863 (Abrams, 1995; Reck & Dick, 2015). Initial growth rates mirrored those of its expansion in England (Abrams, 1995; Bunk, 2021). The first attempt to establish a professional league occurred in 1894 (Apostolov, 2012; Van Rheenen, 2009), when the owners of baseball franchises in six large north-eastern cities founded the American League of Professional Football Clubs (ALPFC) and formed teams, agreed on match schedules and venues – their baseball fields in New York City, Brooklyn, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston (Apostolov, 2012; Bunk, 2021; Goldblatt, 2006). The matches attained limited crowds and the league dissolved after a few months; however, football did not disappear (Abrams, 1995; Allaway & Jose 2002; Bunk, 2021). The game’s early development is illustrated in the successes of migrant Scottish factory team, Bethlehem Steel, who played between 1907 and 1930 in New Jersey and rose above high levels of local competition (Allaway, 2009). There were enough amateur and professional clubs, competitions, college programs (Kirk & Weaver, 2019), leagues and tournaments to: form an association and pursue FIFA for national association membership in 1912 (Goldblatt, 2006); establish the USSF (formerly the United States Football Association) in 1913 (Bunk, 2011); and introduce the U.S. Open Cup, a knockout tournament for amateur and professional teams in 1914 (Bunk, 2021; Reck & Dick, 2015). During the 1920s and 1930s, the US experienced a ‘Golden Age’ of football in which the professional American Soccer League (ASL) was established and lasted for over a decade (Apostolov, 2012; Goldblatt, 2006). Mainstream soccer may have fallen into decline in the early 1930s, but the sport maintained its popularity among immigrant communities (Reck & Dick, 2015; Trouille, 2009). Indeed, although with little success, the men’s national team, continued to turn out for World Cup qualifiers (Farnsworth, 2014). In the late 1960s, entrepreneurs recognised the game’s mainstream popularity and commercial success in Europe and South America and saw

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 85 opportunities to profit. Without real consideration for football’s redoubtable appeal elsewhere, and the established migrant following within the US (see for example, Trouille, 2009), these businessmen embarked on many short-cuts to popularise soccer, including: changing pitch markings to encourage more goals (Van Rheenen, 2009); recruiting entire European teams to play summer league competitions in their off-season (Apostolov, 2012; Goldblatt, 2006); and instating ‘new’ competition structures such as the International Soccer League (ISL). The League was formed in 1960 to mimic other US-centric sporting codes – American football, baseball, and basketball – but the continual push for its expansion would see it collapse under the weight of its own poorly stretched largesse in 1965 (Salkeld, 2017). Its closure did not dissuade two new leagues, launched in 1967, despite economic and legal opposition to each other (Goldblatt, 2006). The National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) was an independent competition with no affiliation to USSF or FIFA, but it did win TV broadcasting rights over its rival, the USSF affiliated United Soccer Association (USA), which resorted to appropriating whole post-season squads from England and South America to fill their summer fixtures (Goldblatt, 2006). Their combined failures would see these leagues combine their assets and form the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1968. Rather than learn the lessons of the previous iterations or encourage the growth of the grassroots game, the NASL clubs expended large amounts of money and energy to draw crowds through famous players (Plenderleith, 2015). By the late 1970s, the NASL gained worldwide fame for the expensive signings of short-term, highly paid aging international players such as Bobby Moore, Eusébio, George Best, Gerd Müller, Johan Cruyff, and Johan Neeskens (Goldblatt, 2006; Plenderleith, 2015; Van Rheenen, 2009). The most obvious example is the New York Cosmos, who formed and played between 1971 and 1995 and signed Franz Beckenbauer of Germany, Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia and superstars Pelé and Carlos Alberto of Brazil (Newsham, 2006; Reck & Dick, 2015). During its most successful seasons, NASL matches attracted large crowds – the largest was the 77,691 who attended a Cosmos match in New Jersey (Yannis, 1977) – and its games were broadcast on US television. By the mid-1980s, however, a range of factors, including its operating model, declining audiences, and the loss of its television rights revenue, drove the league out of business (Goldblatt, 2006; Newsham, 2006). The model was also ineffectual in promoting the grassroots game, providing a foundation for sustainable development, or supporting the establishment of a successful national team (Reck & Dick, 2015; Van Rheenen, 2009). In 1988, the US contrived to win the rights to host the 1994 FIFA men’s World Cup. The tournament was leveraged by the USSF and FIFA to boost interest in the sport in the world’s largest economy. The host nation was eligible to field a team in the finals without undertaking the qualification process; their progression to the knock-out rounds augmented interest and local audience figures within already remarkable global audiences. In addition, US Soccer was mandated to establish a men’s professional league. Major League Soccer

86  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 (MLS), a national professional competition, commenced in 1996. Hosting the World Cup directly informed and influenced its early success as games were played before record attendances (Apostolov, 2012; Gerke, 2019). The league’s popularity faded significantly in the early 2000s, but LA Galaxy’s spectacular capture of David Beckham in 2007 transformed its audiences and outlook (Apostolov, 2012). The MLS may have concerns related to developing talent for a world-beating national squad, but it has 29 teams across North America (see Blumberg & Markovits, 2021; MLS, 2023). The US men’s national soccer team have competed in international football since 1916; their first FIFA men’s World Cup was 1930 (Cirino, 1983; Douglas, 1996; Lisi, 2017). They have since qualified for ten men’s World Cup tournaments, hosted one (1994), and will co-host another in 2026. Their best finish is a semi-final place in 1930 and a quarter-final place in 2002. Given the size of the country, the levels of participation, and the unparalleled success of the US Women’s National Team (USWNT), the men’s national team have under-performed. This is viewed as a failure on the part of US soccer authorities and their inability to organise and sustain a domestic league structure designed to support the men’s national team or learn the lessons from teams and national associations that are successful (Collins, 2006; Foer, 2004; Markovits & Hellerman, 1995, 2014). These analyses point to the MLS prior to the Beckham signing, but more recent critique of the MLS is available (Blumberg & Markovits, 2021; Elder, 2022). Today, with more US men’s national team players playing in top European competitions than ever, and American television networks paying billions for the rights to broadcast the MLS (Apple paid US$2.5bn; Gostomelsky, 2022), top European domestic leagues (NBC paid US$2bn for the English Premier League; Creditor, 2021), and UEFA Champions League (Paramount+ paid US$1.5bn; Smith, 2022), men’s football looks far less like a failure than at any time in the country’s history. Women’s soccer in the US is thriving. With some of the world’s highest paid women players (Humphreys, 2022), and four FIFA Women’s World Cup wins, discussions around failure have very different themes. The inability to play prior to 1972, for example (Blaschke, 2022), and the very recent equal pay deal for women’s national team players (Culvin et al., 2022; English, 2021), are among the genuine failures of soccer in the US. Before we touch on these and other issues it is important to provide some context. Historical records of women’s soccer are relatively difficult to locate. A women’s association football match in San Francisco in December 1893 is held up as the first instance of the women’s game (Bunk, 2021). Three decades later an exhibition match was held in New York to mark the tour of Dick, Kerr Ladies of England in 1922 (Goldblatt, 2006; Newsham, 2014; Williams, 2007). This tour may have been a catalyst for women’s soccer or a celebration of the burgeoning collegiate program activity (Kirk & Weaver, 2019; Ladda, 2000; Williams, 2007). Federal civil rights laws encapsulated in Title IX – the Education Amendments of 1972 – prohibited sex discrimination (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity) in education programs or activities receiving

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 87 US federal financial assistance. Introduced to enforce equal funding and opportunities for women in sporting activities, this historic legislation has wrought substantial change (Karlik & Wolden, 2023), and marked what is described as the ‘modern era’ of women’s football (Markovits & Hellerman, 2003, p. 18). While participation numbers in organised sports programs have significantly increased within American academic institutions, there is much to do before equality is realised (Blaschke, 2022). Even with Title IX in place, the growth of women’s football through the 1970s was gained through careful negotiation, strategic lobbying and stolid defence of ground won (Williams, 2007), as illustrated in the example of Illinois Women’s Soccer League (Martinez, 2008). The first instance of a US women’s team participating in international football is club team Dallas Sting, who represented their nation at the Changhua Cup in Chinese Taipei in 1978 and 1981 (Pieper, 2015; Townsend, 2015). Their involvement prompted the organisation of national soccer camps, which led to the on-paper selection of a national squad but no fixtures (US Soccer, 2005). That changed in 1985, when the US team were invited to participate in the Mundialito [little World Cup], a series of independent women’s football tournaments that took place in northern Italy between 1984 and 1988. The USWNT lost to Italy (1-0) and Denmark (1-0) (US Soccer, 2005; see Murray for a detailed account of the scramble in the US soccer community to field a team and transport the players to Italy, 2019). In the 1986 edition the US team returned to defeat Brazil, China, and Japan (Wahl, 2019). The story of the contrast of their ‘poor’ performances in 1985 edition and their runners up medals in the 1986 tournament is the likely cornerstone of the USWNT’s development (see Murray, 2019; US Soccer, 2005; Wahl, 2019). For three decades since, the USWNT have been the powerhouse in women’s world football. The first FIFA Women’s World Cup took place in China in 1991 with crowds averaging over 18,000 per match. The competition comprised of 12 teams, the USWNT navigated the group and knock-out stages before defeating Norway in the final (2-1). The 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by the US featured 16 teams competing across four groups. Average game attendance doubled to over 37,000 per match: the crowd at the final was over 90,000; the estimated cumulative attendance for the tournament was over one million. Every match was televised and extensive sponsorship ensured tournament success, with an estimated US$4 million profit on its US$30 million operating budget. The event raised the profile of the women’s game to new heights and achieved an unprecedented success, profitability. China was set to host the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup, but on very short notice in response to the SARS outbreak, the tournament was switched to the US. However, the USSF had failed to capitalise on the tournament win and the remarkable growth in interest. Attendance figures or the level of success did not meet with those of the 1999 tournament, which had four years of preparation and build up. The USSF did initiate the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) league competition, which operated from 2001 to 2003, but did not financially

88  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 support or assist in securing sponsorship or broadcast rights (Foudy, 2015; Williams, 2007). They would also not sanction its successor, the Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league competition, which ran between 2009 and 2012. Unlike its predecessor, the WPS secured broadcast rights with Fox Soccer and a league sponsor. However, the competition was affected by financial, legal, and cultural issues related to the ‘un-American’ nature of football (Williams, 2007). During its tenure, the USWNT were runners up in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany – all but one of the national squad played in the competition, which was based in the Northeast (U.S. Soccer Communications, 2011). The current National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) began in 2013; it currently includes 12 teams. All but one of the players in the current USWNT squad play for teams in the league. The USWNT won the 2015 Women’s World Cup (Canada) and the record-breaking 2019 edition (France) – over one billion people tuned in to watch (FIFA.com, 2019). It is no coincidence that the most successful team in the world is underpinned with a successful domestic competition, which is reinforced by US intercollegiate football (see for example, Kirk & Weaver, 2019). Mainstream acceptance of women’s sport and (finally) recognition of the efforts of the players, coaches and administrators is bolstering WSNL’s ability to secure sponsorship, broadcast rights and support. In the face of less press, but more negative coverage (Painter et al., 2022), the national team’s success and the strength of the WNSL have been key to the visibility of the women’s game and its continuing growth in the US. Lack of recognition of this context is what informed the USWNT players’ decision to act over inequities in pay and treatment (Carrick et al., 2021; Culvin et al., 2022; English, 2021). Where the women collectively generate more revenue for the USSF than the men’s national team (Glass, 2019; Hess, 2019), they argued they should be paid at least the same levels of salary and benefits. Following six years of legal action, on Tuesday 22 February 2022, USSF and the players negotiated agreement to provide players with damages and lost income (US$22m), the establishment of a fund to benefit the players in their post-soccer careers (US$2m), and a commitment by USSF to provide an equal rate of pay for the women’s and men’s national teams (Associate Press, 2022). A diverse range of academic research offering deeper understanding of the broader picture of football in the US is available. Works cover the complex issues of ethnicity (see Trouille, 2009; Van Rheenen, 2009) and class (Allison & Barranco, 2021; Reck, & Dick, 2015), issues of migration related to specific teams (Moniz, 2007), and in specific communities, such as Latin communities (Messeri, 2008; Price & Whitworth, 2004). Fan culture is also becoming a rich area for research around the national team (see Gerke, 2018), related to specific professional teams (Guest & Luijten, 2018) and the grassroots level (Gerke, 2019), and engagement through social media (Burch et al., 2018; Cavalier & Newhall, 2018). Scholarship of women’s football in Europe, Latin America, and other parts of the world is growing, but still comparatively limited when we look at research related to the men’s game. The same can be

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 89 said of current work on US women’s football; it is growing but comparatively limited when we look at research in other countries. For further discussion and insight on the women’s game in the US, see for example: Special Issue of Sport in Society, Women’s soccer in the United States (Allison, 2018); Jean Williams chapter, The Girls of Summer, the Daughters of Title IX: Women’s Football in the United States (2007); the text, Beyond Bend It Like Beckham: The Global Phenomenon of Women’s Soccer (Grainey, 2012), and the rising number of creative non-fiction works, Under the Lights and In the Dark: Untold Stories of Women’s Soccer (Oxenham, 2018), National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer (Murray, 2019); and Raised by a Warrior (Petruccelli, 2021). US beach soccer, its modes of operation, organisation, and means of engagement echo attempts to commercialise and or monetise the sport and grow participation. There is a diverse range of models of approach and they all impact and underpin its development in a range of ways. US beach soccer Modern beach soccer was born in the US. A derivative of the Brazilian game, futebol de praia, it was a creation of circumstance and necessity, and the introduction of the passing game played in the only environment readily available (see Chapter 4); but like the short story to the novel, modern beach soccer is an American form. The version of beach soccer that emerged there carries all the characteristics of its footballing heritage: a commercialised approach to sports participation and a reinvention of the rules with entertainment in mind. In 1987, USSF’s first goalkeeping coach and developer of the curriculum for the US national goalkeeping licence (Allen, 2015), Englishman Peter Mellor instituted Major Beach Soccer (MBS), the first US beach soccer tournament in Clearwater Beach, Florida. He did so in the wake of a 1985 visit to Rio de Janeiro, where he witnessed and was influenced by the game’s popularity (Mellor, in Life’s a Beach, 2016). He sought to harness the energy of Brazilian beach soccer. A pre-existing relationship with football equipment manufacturer, Umbro, would see the company sponsor the event, initially called ‘Soccer on the Beach’ (Lewis, n.d.), which quickly grew to accommodate multiple regular tournaments in Fort Lauderdale, Daytona and Fort Myers (Johnson, 2009), and a larger annual National Championship each December. The annual event includes invitations to the winners of pro-am beach soccer tournaments around the country including the Soccer in the Sand (SITS) tournament (see below) and others in Florida and New York (Clift, 2015). Additional locations were added in Coquina Beach and Cocoa Beach, Florida (Berman, 2017). These events, which were strictly amateur and aimed at local community participation, focused on juniors, although co-ed and adult competitions – also popular – ran until as recently as 2019. There is no evidence, however, that they have continued since. The initiation of these tournaments, which are short, compact 5-a-side matches, warrants further investigation.

90  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 It is possible there was an earlier attempt to instigate beach soccer participation in Santa Cruz in 1976, but evidence is thin and cannot be corroborated at this time. Most records note beach soccer’s initiation occurred in Los Angeles in 1992 with Giancarlo Signorini’s pro-am in Los Angeles – the pilot and template for BSWW tournaments (see BSWW, n.d.). Umbro USA changed ownership and focus in 1992. Rather than continue sales promotion via expensive campaigns and kit manufacturing and merchandising deals for clubs in US men’s professional football, they elected to target the grassroots game (Umbro plc, n.d.). Their strategy shifted to the manufacturing and sales of soccer equipment to community clubs and school programs. This approach included widespread localised sponsorships of club events, the annual Columbus Day tournament at Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach, for example. Alongside the growth of beach soccer in Florida, the company established an informal amateur US Sand Soccer Federation (NASSC, 2001). While further research is required here, it is clear their involvement was integral to the development of a burgeoning US beach soccer scene, which emerged independent of – and concurrent to – Signorini’s tournament in California, although their activity would likely have been connected to Mellor’s MBS. On the prompting of Umbro representatives, the collection of grass-based community football organisations that operated under the auspices of the Hampton Roads Soccer Council in Virginia Beach approached Dick Whalen, who then organised the inaugural North American Sand Soccer Championship (NASSC). The purpose of the novelty fundraiser was the upgrade of the facilities used by multiple local football communities. Dick Whalen’s first tournament in 1994 consisted of 26 junior (youth) and adult teams – around 200 players – and took place in what locals would describe as a Nor’easter (Life’s a Beach, 2016). There was some novelty value in participation in the initial tournament, which was sponsored by a community grass-based football club and the Virginia Beach Rotary Club and attracted local media (NASSC, 2001). Its focus as a community competition, generating revenue for the betterment of numerous soccer communities operating out of the Hampton Roads Soccer Council facilities, echoed the ethos, values, and community-mindedness of the game during its early evolution in Brazil – space to play, to connect, and look out for the neighbourhood. The beach soccer emerging in California was a much more commercial enterprise. Signorini, a native of Connecticut, followed up his Los Angeles tournament by devising the first professional US beach soccer competition, which featured teams representing Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and the US. The tournament took place in 1993 in Miami Beach, Florida and drew substantial local television coverage and sponsorship, including the support of Umbro. Despite reluctance to promote football, deemed the least American of popular team sports (Goldblatt, 2006), the media seemed comfortable to support beach soccer. In 1994, Signorini formed a partnership with Brazilian media agency, Koch Tavares, which included the use and application of his professional beach soccer model and quickly resulted in the development of beach soccer’s first

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 91 international company, the Beach Soccer Company (BSC) (beachsoccer.com, 2001). BSC actively sought to build the game in the US and staged events in Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles in the lead up to the 1994 FIFA men’s World Cup and returned to Miami for another tournament the following year. The 1995 NASSC event drew 132 teams and over 1,000 players and required 12 pitches. The NASSC was the first grassroots tournament to formally affiliate with the BSC’s 1997 Pro Beach Soccer (PBS) tour, which had a host of lucrative sponsors on board (Young Men by the Sea, 1997). In 1999, NASSC established a lucrative annual men’s pro-am prize division that attracted the most experienced US beach soccer players exhibiting the highest levels of skill and quickly a popular feature of the annual tournament. The professional tournament would see teams pay to participate and then win the prize pot consisting of the fees (NASSC, 2022). At the 2001 edition, over 475 teams representing 12 different states and a small number of international countries played matches across 35 pitches. PBS expanded their support with the sponsorship of an international exhibition, the US men’s national beach soccer team played their Canadian counterparts – PBS would soon become a key element of BSWW operations. NASSC had grown so big by then that organisers recruited the local military. Virginia Beach is home to five branches of the local armed forces, including the US Army, US Navy, and the US Coast Guard. Some of these organisations support the event, assist with site construction and organisation, provide hundreds of volunteers to coordinate events and, through a range of teams, participate in competition. In the first 15 years since the initiation of beach soccer in the US, its three most prominent tournaments offered a range of approaches. The PBS (BSWW) model operated to tour and grow the game through high-profile exhibition matches and players and maintained a light touch approach. MBS had settled into a pattern, a stable series of low key localised regular events and celebratory annual national championship in December in Florida that did not conflict with the third model, the annual NASSC in mid-June. The NASSC had expanded to 18 times its original size in its first seven years and now maintained significant overlap and collaboration with first PBS (BSWW). The next section considers significant developments in the 2000s, specifically the introduction of two innovative models of approach that borrow from and augment established practices. Twenty-first century beach soccer By 2012, the range of beach soccer tournament formats in the US had settled and stabilised. MBS continued to operate successfully in their respective Floridian locations. Participating team numbers in the NASSC, which experienced continuing rapid growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century, attained a level of relative consistency – between 900 and 1,000 teams, which equates to approximately 11,000 players. The tournament has been the largest single beach soccer tournament in the world for some time; more importantly

92  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 it has been the most influential. As it has grown, those involved in the other tournaments we will discuss here have looked closely at its development. Materials for NASSC post-2012 tournaments, such as programs, posters, and television coverage are accessible through the organisation; however, the histories of tournaments that occurred during the second decade of its operations – between 2001 and 2011 – are less so. The tournament, now directed by Matt Whalen (the late Dick Whalen’s son), will see its twenty-ninth edition in 2023 and has not changed significantly in terms of scope, scale, or level of activity since 2012. The largest tournament to date (2019) included close to 1,100 teams, almost 12,000 players, and over three days of competition, which attracted approximately 200,000 attendees (players, support staff, volunteers, and spectators). The most recent, a post-COVID-19 tournament in 2022, included over 750 teams and almost 150,000 attendees (players, support staff, volunteers, and spectators) (NASSC, 2022). We use these figures as a guide and where we can identify ‘new’ elements in 2012 we have been able to highlight key developments that emerged prior to this period. Teams from 20 different nations and 25 different US states have participated. The professional tour schedule in the US is shaped by NASSC’s pro-am competition, the US Open, which started in 2003, and is the longest running in the country. NASSC were the first to add a women’s competition in 2018. Throughout its operation the tournament has generated revenue for the Hampton Roads Soccer Council, investment in the facilities, and in support of its associated grass-based football communities. Fundraising for redevelopment and to support local clubs are a distinct feature of the many beach soccer tournaments that have followed. Where the ‘pay and play’ soccer model disproportionately affects disadvantaged players (Jeanes & Lucas, 2019), funds raised are made available to support and broaden access. The tournament regularly attracts significant sponsorship from national and local companies; it has successfully leveraged its economic scale for its own benefit in securing the support of local state organisations, and local industry, particularly the tourism sector. The event is recognised internationally and is supported, endorsed, and reported on by BSWW and its associated platforms. NASSC was also the first to add auxiliary activities: its ‘Sidekick’ venues feature a range of beach soccer masterclasses, clinics and camps led by renowned players and coaches; associated entertainment include a vendor village (often stylised pop-up marketplaces) and other beach sports related competitions, such as footvolley, tennis, and rugby. NASSC is central to US beach soccer and has been integral to the development of the broader beach soccer community. Its influence is recognisable in three prominent tournaments which started in 2005, 2006, and 2007, respectively. The first incorporates an international camp to Brazil, hosts events in Bali and Singapore and echoes the BSC tours of a decade earlier. The second is an expansive franchise model, which features competitions in nine different states, and the third is a contained tournament with a ceiling on participation that appears to guarantee selling all competition places.

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 93 Pro Am Beach Soccer (PABS) began with an annual event in Santa Cruz, California, in 2005, added a San Francisco event in 2007, then two proximal events in Stinson Beach (2010) and the Bay Area (2011), also California. In 2016 PABS added a 32-team event in Pompano, Florida to their calendar along with local events in Monterey and the Bali beach soccer international in Indonesia; then in 2017 they administered the Singapore Beach Soccer National Championship. They have since hosted events in Atlantic City (2018), Chicago (2019), San Diego (2019), Tempe, Arizona (2022), and Galveston, Texas (2023). The Santa Cruz event is the organisation’s largest, attracting up to 150 teams. The San Diego event often attracts a mix of US-based teams alongside from other countries including Canada and the Bahamas. Each of the events on the PABS calendar/tour leads to the determination of a champion. The champions of each then meet in an annual national championship usually held in November each year. An important distinction to be made here is that PABS do not coordinate or facilitate all the tournaments. The operation is much more like a franchise where PABS partners with organisations. The individual tournaments are relatively small, usually under 100 teams. Collectively, the offer of a ‘next step’ for individual tournament champions has enabled PABS to gather momentum and authority. Not every tournament they approach agrees to the partnership, but it is a rare example of a tour outside of BSWW with international events. PABS also offers an annual beach soccer training camp in Brazil. The SITS model is a series of interconnected profit-share ‘franchise-like’ events designed for local community clubs to raise funds through a version of beach soccer that offers a novelty in the context of their grass-based activities. The clubs share revenue generated with SITS, who also generate additional income through the sale of branded equipment and merchandise. The clubs generally use the funds to reinvest in their club, the events will usually provide a small number of scholarship places to broaden access. SITS currently manage up to 12–15 annual one or two day beach soccer tournaments held at lakeside or seaside locations in nine different states. The events vary in scale, ranging from 50–450 teams and most events are junior (7–18-year-olds) and adult amateur (co-ed, men, women), although some SITS tournaments do include pro-am elements. With as many as 1,500 teams participating in SITS events, Chris LeMay, founder and creator, may be warranted in his claim that his beach soccer model is the largest in the US. SITS began in 2006 in the place where LeMay grew up: playing soccer on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan rather than a beach with an ocean view. The first tournament took place in Grand Haven, Michigan in 2007 on the lake shore. The annual event has grown to include 250 teams and regularly attracts 40,000 people. The tournaments, facilitated through a team of SITS representatives, operate in ‘a circus-like approach’ (C. LeMay, personal correspondence, 2023, February 7). The organising team pitch the concept to a club, then arrive on the day, set up for the tournament, usually alongside a suite of activities for participants and the broader community, including

94  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 skills clinics, master classes, a vendor village and other beach related food and hospitality activities. The innovation here is the purposeful revenue sharing franchise model that includes the vertical integration of beach soccer equipment sales to facilitate each tournament, which perhaps borrows more from the entertainment and hospitality sectors. These services raise notions related to the challenges of the ‘pay and play’ model prevalent in the US (Jeanes & Lucas, 2019), but they are valued by SITS participants. In much the same way as NASSC, the Beach Soccer Championships have occurred on Harbor Beach in Oceanside, Southern California since 2007. In 2016, Gino Rossi, its founder and creator, estimated the tournament’s economic value to Oceanside’s tourist industry was around US$5m (Life’s a Beach, 2016). Beach Soccer USA administer their annual beach festival and underline the music and associated entertainment, merchandise, cantinas, a vendor village and beach soccer masterclasses, clinics and camps led by renowned players and coaches. The core activity is, of course, the beach soccer, a contained tournament comprised of two elements. The largest element is the Beach Soccer Championships (BeSoCha), a series of competitions for junior and amateur adult sides (Beach Soccer USA, n.d.). In addition to the competitions, the organisation annually donates funds to local youth soccer programs. The first championship included 152 teams competing on 15 pitches. In 2010, Beach Soccer USA established a capacity limit of 28 pitches, which allows for around 300 participating teams. The second element, the Beach Soccer USA Cup (formerly the Beach Soccer US Pro Cup) takes place alongside the amateur event. The tournament’s format has remained consistent throughout; its point of differentiation is its parameters, which have enabled a focus on its pedigree as a competition. Organisers have been very careful in their consideration of tournament invitations and attracted teams from all over the world. Their professional competitions for women’s and men’s teams have since hosted USbased sides, some of the world’s best players and teams from top beach soccer nations including Brazil, Canada, Japan, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Tahiti and United Arab Emirates have participated. In 2015 Brazilian side Vasco de Gama defeated Spanish side FC Barcelona (featuring former FIFA Player of the Year, Ramiro Amarelle) in the quarter-final before losing to eventual champion BSC Chargers from Switzerland; the 2016 Champions were Al Ahli (Dubai, UAE). The tournament’s Most Valuable Player was former FIFA beach soccer player of the year and Portuguese beach soccer World Cup Champion, Madjer. The tournament did not operate in 2020 or 2021 due to issues related to COVID-19 (Beach Soccer USA, n.d.). Over 40 beach soccer tournaments occur in the US a year. Among them are the Beach Five Sand Soccer Series run by Jim Kupec and Bill Harte which started in Ocean City, New Jersey in 2007. Copacabana Beach Soccer Tournaments operate a monthly calendar of youth, adult, and pro-am competitions on California beaches, including El Segundo, Huntington, Malibu, and Santa Monica (n.d.). Their focus is on the sport and to facilitate their work, they have partnered with the local professional grass-based football clubs, Angel

Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 95 City and LA Galaxy, and the local county authorities. The most recent we know of is the US National Beach Soccer League (NBSL), started in 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida by Aldo Balsano, former US National Beach Soccer Team goalkeeper. The organisation runs multiple men’s and women’s events every year and centres on the high level/professional division (they have a men’s and women’s) and recently started a youth component. The more established tournaments that feature pro-am competitions are often attended by representatives from the USSF beach soccer staff. USSF govern the US national beach soccer teams; both are coached by Francis Farberoff, who captained the men’s national beach soccer team between 2003 and 2014 when he began coaching the men’s national team. The United States Men’s National Beach Soccer Teams have made six appearances at FIFA men’s Beach Soccer World Cups. They are yet to progress beyond the group stages, however, they have won the Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Beach Soccer Championship on two occasions (2006, 2013). Little is known about the representative teams that participated in the BSC tournament in Miami in 1994, or the teams that competed in the inaugural Beach Soccer World Championship tournament in Brazil in 1995 and 1997 and won the Mundialito in Portugal in 1998. There is a great deal to learn here. The US women’s national beach soccer team did not commence until 2019, women have been playing at the amateur level for longer, another matter for investigation. The 2019 team was initiated with a tournament established by Farberoff and former players to formalise the selection process. The team then participated in the COCACAF qualifiers where they finished second behind Mexico and qualified for 2019 World Beach Games in Doha, Qatar. The team lost two matches but managed a win against Paraguay. Conclusion US Beach soccer was inspired by the game in Brazil and began with changing the rules and pushing for commercialisation and professionalism. Within the context of football in the US, beach soccer’s development can be seen to reflect its many challenges in building an audience. Within the context of beach soccer, the US version can be seen as a microcosm of the trials and tribulations of the global body of beach soccer and its related activities. Just like the hustling beach soccer goalkeeper, it is a sport in continual motion, on and off the pitch. Within itself, in the context of overlapping historical, political, cultural, and economic landscapes, contemporary beach soccer is at once privileged and afflicted by its own processes of development. The national picture features a broad spectrum of tournament forms from local club-based fundraisers with a narrow focus to larger community-based organisations with similar intent and little interest in the professional game. There are commercialised franchise models serving a range of communities, including those that appreciate the convenience of having expert event

96  Beach Soccer in the United States 1992–2012 organisers facilitate their event. Event organisers all know each other and are careful not to step on each other’s beach. There is a professional circuit with tours and players supplementing their income, as determined by cash prizes, and platforms for the US national soccer teams supported by national governing body. And tournament organisers have a clear sense of their economic worth to their local community. Key to football histories, particularly in the ways its origins are mythologised, is that the sport developed organically, codification became a necessity – a mechanism of facilitation – which then consequently evolved as an organised sport. That the modern form of beach soccer began life in the US as a commercial product is appropriate. There are rare exceptions, instances within the range of models of approach where the sport has maintained its value as a means for community engagement. The NASSC return rate for teams is very high (they estimate 93%, NASSC, n.d.); MBS operated across the same model for three decades; local clubs raise funds through the novelty of SITS. However, for the most part its evolution began as a pitch, akin to the astroturfing, ‘selling’ people a game. The appeal and potential profit for stakeholders has been a primary driver in the game’s expansion. Modern beach soccer in the US is in some ways the sport’s most organisationally refined configuration as it has done the most to advance the form, but in other ways, the constant desire to generate revenue can highlight the game’s frailties. The maxim employed most frequently by those involved in the game – ‘anything to grow the game’ – speaks to the dichotomies in US beach soccer’s histories and its development.

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Chapter Six Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019

Introduction The collected histories of Australian beach soccer are relatively sparse. Between 2005 and 2014, there were two trips to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Beach Soccer World Cup (2005, 2013) – although only one to compete (2005) – and two entries into the Asian Football Confederation World Cup qualification process (2009, 2013). At the domestic level, there is one example of sustained localised activity, which occurred between 2010 and 2019 in Wollongong, New South Wales. In the context of the prevalence of its beach culture, its abundance of sand, an emphatic emphasis on sporting culture, and keen embrace of sporting mythologies (Ward, 2013), this lack of beach soccer offers a stark contrast to the sport’s broader international expansion and runs counter to the respective successes enjoyed by Solomon Islands and Tahiti, much smaller neighbouring nations in the same geographic region (see Chapter 7). This chapter locates Australian beach soccer histories within a specific national context, offers new insight on the men’s national team experience and seeks to understand why the Australian version of the sport has not realised and/or maintained a much greater presence on the beaches of this sporting nation’s contemporary landscape. Many Australians see their continental profusion of beaches as integral to their culture (Booth, 2001; Ellison, 2014; Ellison & Hawkes, 2016). Its myriad sandy shores represent a lifestyle imbued with leisure and relaxation (Huntsman, 2001; White, 2005), are held up as a marker of the peoples’ egalitarian nature (Bonner et al., 2001; Dutton, 1985), and for some time, have been considered a vibrant part of their national identity (Ellison & Brien, 2020; Game, 1990; Turner, 1993). As outlined in Chapter 2, Australia’s relationship with its beaches is far more complex. It is informed by colonialism and the striking absence of Indigenous cultures in the nation’s historic processes, by the bloodshed inherent in the violence of invasion (Ellison, 2016; Fiske et al., 1987; Metusela & Waitt, 2012), and more recent conflict around ethnic tensions (Taylor, 2006). At the same time the Australian beach is installed as a key site for tourism (Metusela & Waitt, 2012) and bound to the sociological perimeters of a hometown to the many communities that live and work on its DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-6

Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 103 edges (Game & Metcalfe, 2011; Osbaldiston, 2018). While frequently situated as the conceptual site of cultural significance, Australian beaches are embroiled in a multiplicity of meanings, including frequent associations with sport. Regarded as a national obsession, international sporting success is just as integral to Australian identity (Maguire, 2011; Stell, 1991; Ward, 2013), which is heavily informed by sports media. There is national coverage of women’s and men’s professional competitions in a multitude of sports including: Australian rules football, cricket, netball, rugby league, rugby union, tennis and of course, association football. While there are established gendered patterns of sport media content creation (see for example, Cooky et al., 2013; Toff & Palmer, 2019) and the media offices of Australian sporting organisations are afforded disproportionate influence of the stories related to their sport (Sherwood & Nicholson, 2017), the fortunes of Australian men’s national teams, related events and competitions provide valuable and consistent content for sports media (see for example McKay & Rowe, 1987; Symons et al., 2022). In turn, the beach ably supports swimming, surfing, Ironman (a distinctly Australian competition consisting of participation in running, swimming, surf-skiing and paddle boarding), lifesaving events, triathlons (swimming, cycling and running) and beach volleyball. The marriage of Australian culture and sporting success is perhaps clearest when the nation hosts mega-events, such as the Summer Olympic Games (1956, 2000, 2032) and Commonwealth Games (1938, 1962, 1982, 2006, 2018) (see Chapter 2). The Olympic and Commonwealth beach volleyball competitions on Bondi (2000) and Coolangatta (2018) respectively exemplified the imbrication of the nation’s love of the beach and sport. Football, at grassroots level, boasts Australia’s highest levels of team sport participation (Clearing House, 2021). At the time of writing, the men’s national team, the Socceroos, have acquitted themselves with verve to critical acclaim in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar (Rowe, 2022), and the base camps are hastily being prepared for the teams who will participate in the forthcoming 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Despite time zone hiccups, the tournament is already on track to break previous event ticket sales records and worldwide screen media audience figures (Rugari, 2023). Yet, Australian beach soccer’s story is a fascinating counter to contextual expectation and to the broader narratives of the sport’s expansive growth elsewhere. We will consider international and domestic beach soccer; however, first, in order to locate the sport within the physical and figurative national sporting landscapes, the next section provides a brief review of Australian football histories. Australian football histories Few countries exhibit the levels of sporting competition for public attention experienced in Australia. While association football is perennially on the rise, for much of its history the round ball game has been the poor cousin to three other ‘football’ codes. The Australian Football League (AFL) governs

104  Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 Australian rules football, the number one spectator sport, which evolved from state level in Victoria to a national competition in 1990. The fan base for the National Rugby League (NRL) is concentrated in New South Wales and Queensland. Rugby Union is most popular among, and arguably demarked by its association with, private school-based sporting communities (McGowan et al., 2020a). Football has the same historical longevity as these codes but has struggled to attain the same mainstream audience (Hallinan & Hughson, 2013; Harper et al., 2021). Football’s broader histories in Australia, which are increasingly welldocumented, begin with colonisation and waves of European, predominantly British, migrants arriving between the 1850s and the 1870s (see Ross et al., 2021). In clear alignment with the debates around the modern game’s formal initiation in England, Ian Syson asserts the ‘first’ foot and ball games to establish the presence of men’s soccer in parts of Australia, mainly New South Wales and Victoria, occurred from the early 1850s (2018a, 2018b), before they spread in a range of forms to other parts of the country (Goldblatt, 2006; Syson, 2010, 2013; Hay, 2011, 2016, 2018, 2019a). As it did in England, and possibly a little earlier in Scotland, football found a meaningful start in the 1880s (Hay, 1994, 2014; Syson, 2013). The South British Football Soccer Association formed in New South Wales in 1882 (Goldblatt, 2006); and the Scottish Football Association formed in Brisbane in 1883. Preeminent Australian football histories’ scholar Roy Hay provides insight on Indigenous players’ involvement in the nineteenth century (2019b). Despite the initial resemblance to its European counterpart, men’s association football was overwhelmed by men’s Australian rules football and, to a marginally lesser extent, men’s rugby league by the 1920s (Goldblatt, 2006; Hay, 2006; Hay & Murray, 2014; Syson, 2013). Post-Second World War migration from Greece, Italy, Hungary, and southeastern Europe saw the game playing a crucial role in communities where new Australians were forced to connect with each other and their respective homelands rather than hegemonic AngloAustralian culture (Didiluca, 2021; Goldblatt, 2006). The game experienced significant growth in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result of its association with migrant communities, comparisons with rugby codes and a national ‘othering’ would see the game publicly pilloried (Falcous, 2016). There have been state leagues and a range of national competitions across a variety of formats since 1977; however, the game has, in large part, been unable to capitalise on intermittent surges of interest due in the main to political in-fighting, poor, selfserving administration, and inflated expectation in public perception in terms of international success (see Solly, 2004; Syson, 2010). It has not been able to detach from its description as a ‘minority interest’. The term is arguably used to articulate its popularity among, and long association with, Australia’s immigrant populations and to reinforce the sport’s marginalisation, highlighting concerns of assimilation, citizenship, ethnicity, and identity (Gorman, 2017; Warren, 2003). Despite this, there is a depth of academic literature written about grass-based football development in Australia (see for example, Hallinan

Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 105 & Hughson, 2009; Hay & Murray, 2014; Solly, 2004). We note the current set up, initiated in 2005, is its most stable to date and continues to expand. The earliest histories of women’s football in Australia centre around a match at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, which was attended by an estimated crowd of 10,000 (Downes et al., 2015). The match is the culmination of significant momentum in women’s football in the public domain (McGowan, 2019). Teams formed, trained, and played before sizeable crowds in cities across Australia (Haines, 2016). As they did in England, these initiatives received remarkable levels of attention in the local press. The growth in interest and participation and the endeavours of those pioneers involved in women’s organisations in the first two decades of the twentieth century have been captured in some detail (see for example, Downes et al., 2015; McGowan, 2019; Williams, 2007), although each acknowledges that there is much yet to learn. The exuberance of the women’s game in the early 1920s was short-lived and women’s football all but disappeared by 1923. However, busy, vibrant competitions emerged in 1927 and 1933 in New South Wales in the Hunter Valley and northern Sydney (McGowan, 2019). A league also bloomed in Sydney during World War II, when the workforce imitated their European counterparts and used the football pitch as relief from the factory floor (Nicholls, 2018). A handful of industrious pioneers led the game’s evolution in the 1960s in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, independent state organisations formed, and joined to develop the Australian Women’s Soccer Association (AWSA), Australia’s first national body for women’s football, in 1974 (Crawford & McGowan, 2019; Watson, 1994). By the end of the 1970s women’s football, through the tireless efforts of Elaine Watson OAM, Heather Reid AM and their peers, a national league competition was established, leading to – in the first decade of the twenty-first century – professionalisation (Downes, 2021). This very brief history should be read in conjunction with the substantial insight and commentary on the growth in participation and the deeper, wider social forces associated with women’s sporting environments (Adair, 2009; Adair & Vamplew, 1997; Hess, 2005, 2011, 2014; Stell, 1991) and the growing range of informed perspectives on the development of women’s football in Australia (see for example: Crawford & McGowan, 2019; Downes, 2021; McGowan et al., 2023; Stell & Reid, 2020). The Beach Socceroos With limited preparation time, the newly reformed national governing body (Georgakis & Molloy, 2014) Football Australia (formerly Football Federation Australia) accepted an invitation from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to participate in the 2005 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Brazil (FIFA.com., 2005a). Their response brought the Australian men’s national beach soccer team into being. Football Australia appointed former national women’s team (known as the Matildas) head coach, Adrian Santrac, to lead a squad comprised of experienced former professional players,

106  Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 from the National Soccer League (NSL), including: Andrew Crews, Vuko Tomasevic, George Souris, Steve Karavatakis, and John Buonvoglia. Prior to the invitation, there had been little formal beach soccer played in Australia. While not unusual to build a team from former 11-a-side players, after a decade of development under Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), the sport had significantly evolved as a professional discipline (see Chapter 3) prior to Australia’s engagement with it. The Australian team represented the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) in a debut for both at the tournament. Technically, it was FIFA’s debut too. The other teams in the competition included the top three teams from the 2004 Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL), France, Portugal, and Ukraine. Spain earned their spot by winning a play-off competition between the next four best teams in the European competition, which had been running annually since 1998. The US won the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) beach soccer championship to represent North America, and Argentina and Uruguay qualified from the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol [South American Football Confederation] (CONMEBOL) Beach Soccer Championship. The teams and competitions had pedigree and experience. The other South American team, Brazil, qualified as hosts – and winners of nine prior annual World Championships before FIFA rebranded this international tournament. Japan and Thailand, the strongest teams in the burgeoning Asian beach soccer circuit, were also invited. We note these teams, to offer a sense of the scale of beach soccer’s growth and Australia’s relative disconnection and highlight the levels of courage the team demonstrated in attending the tournament as a newly formed team in a sport yet to be played by the country. The Beach Socceroos, who took their name from the Australian men’s national football team, drew France and Argentina in the first-round group stage. Both matches took place in the purpose-built temporary stadium on Copacabana beach in front of approximately 5,000 spectators. The French team featured Eric Cantona, a rare former footballer of great renown that accomplished the successful transition to accomplished beach soccer player. The French team had made their debut at the 1997 Beach Soccer World Championships and participated in each competition until 2008. The Argentine team came into the tournament with a long-standing reputation and eight previous visits to the tournament. The Beach Socceroos’ first international fixture resulted in a 5-1 loss to eventual tournament winners, France (FIFA.com, 2005a). Their second match was an even more respectable 3-1 loss to Argentina. While out of the tournament, the Beach Socceroos’ efforts would be deemed a success given the opposition and lack of preparation (FIFA.com, 2005b). When Football Australia left the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) to join the more competitive Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 2006, the Beach Socceroos became eligible to participate in the AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup. Still, it would be 2009 before Australia made their regional debut in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at the AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup (formerly

Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 107 known as the AFC Beach Soccer Championship). Under the direction of a new coach, former Solomon Islands men’s national football team coach, Airton Andrioli, the Beach Socceroos squad included five players from the 2005 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup team in Brazil. Two of the eight participating teams would qualify for the 2009 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, the Beach Socceroos were drawn in Group B with Oman, China, and Iran. The opening defeat to Iran (3-1) was to be expected; the Persians are an established Asian beach soccer powerhouse (BSWW, 2013a). The Beach Socceroos then convincingly defeated China (4-1). The prize for a win against Oman in the third group match was progress to the semi-finals; however, the Beach Socceroos started poorly, conceding twice in the first period. A scoreless second period was followed with a quick Beach Socceroos’ goal – Jonathan Cook scored to make it 2-1 – but Oman extended their lead with two more. With only six minutes left, Michael Matricciani doubled the Beach Socceroos tally but it would not be enough to stop Oman progressing to the semi-final and the third-place play-off (Football NSW, 2009). Despite clear signs of progress in a difficult competition, Football Australia’s priorities did not allow for available funding and the team did not enter the 2011 tournament. Perhaps, Oman’s second-place finish and Iran’s third in the 2011 AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup reinforced understanding of the potential in the Beach Socceroos. Funds were made available for the team to participate in the expanded 2013 AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar. Such was the growth in the sport in the region that competing team numbers increased from six to sixteen. Two members of the 2005 team, George Souris and Dimitrios Bakis – each with eight years of service to the national team – were joined by a number of former A-League Men’s competition players, notably two former Socceroos, Ante Juric and David Zdrilic. Airton Andrioli returned to coach and ensure appropriate preparation took place leading into the tournament. This included multiple camps at local Sydney beaches, including Coogee and Maroubra. The Beach Socceroos’ 2013 campaign began in Group A, which was comprised of Afghanistan, their old foes Oman, and hosts Qatar. They sought and won redemption defeating Oman 6-4 in their opening match. They defeated Qatar in a penalty shoot-out after the second match ended level (3-3) after extra time. In the penalty shoot-out, Australia’s Michele Lastella scored the fourth goal and goalkeeper, Simon Jaeger, saved a fourth, resulting in a winning result. Jaeger also earned the award as AFC Beach Soccer goalkeeper of the tournament. In their third and final group match, the Beach Socceroos defeated Afghanistan (6-4) to top their group and set up the first of two possible opportunities to qualify for the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti. The quarter-final with Japan ended in a narrow 2-1 defeat. Japan would finish tournament runners up. The Beach Socceroos faced the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the only remaining World Cup berth. The UAE men’s national beach soccer team had won two earlier Asian Cups and are one of the best resourced teams in the region. The match is now one of the most famous in

108  Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 Asian Cup history. Down by the odd goal in five, a desperate Australia scored their desired equaliser on the siren that signalled the game’s end (BSWW, 2013a). Convinced they had secured the extra-time needed to score a winner, the Beach Socceroos celebrated; believing the goal came too late, the UAE team also celebrated. Match officials disallowed the goal and UAE qualified for Tahiti. The controversial finish led to warranted scrutiny of tournament rules. In recognition of their efforts, Tahitian football’s governing body and 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup hosts, the Fédération tahitienne de football (FTF), invited the Beach Socceroos to participate in an exhibition match as part of the tournament’s opening ceremony (FIFA, 2013). A fourth-place AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup finish and their performances at the AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup earned the Beach Socceroos an invitation to the prestigious Asian Beach Soccer Cup in Haiyang, China (not to be confused with the AFC tournament). The hosts won the tournament, UAE were runners up, and Australia lost a tight third-place play-off to Thailand (BSWW, 2013b). Later in 2013, the Beach Socceroos would win the inaugural Australian Beach Soccer Cup, Australia’s first international beach soccer competition, in Wollongong. Fresh from winning the Asian Beach Soccer Cup, China, and medallists Thailand, accepted invitations to play in the 2013 Australian Beach Soccer Cup. Vanuatu, a strong team in the OFC competition, were invited too, but were unable to travel. Victory in the three-team competition saw the Beach Socceroos claim their first title. They defeated China on the opening day. David Zdrilic scored four goals to level with the Chinese tally. Zdrilic scored two more in the exciting extra time win (7-5), giving him a rare double hattrick. The Australians were more dominant 3–1 winners in the competition decider with Thailand, who had defeated China in an earlier match (BSWW, 2013c). In their efforts to encourage the game, Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) endorsed the tournament’s next edition, the 2014 Australian Beach Soccer Cup. Football Australia, the state tourist department, Destination New South Wales, and the local office, Destination Wollongong, sponsored the event (Destination NSW, 2014), which also garnered coverage in the Illawarra Mercury, and on television with the Australian national service, the SBS television network, and in coverage provided by local domestic channels. Tournament organisers made excellent promotional use of social media, particularly the Facebook platform. Thailand returned, along with Vanuatu, and proved too strong for the Australians. Thailand won the opening game (5-2) and the competition decider. In between, Vanuatu pushed both teams to their limits. The Ni-Vanuatu defeated Thailand in a penalty decider and forced Australia into extra time after the match finished level with 12 goals shared. The final was also a very close match, which Thailand won five goals to four to attain the second Australian Beach Soccer Cup. Exciting matches attracted relatively large crowds (approx. 8,000 spectators, players and administrators); national coverage in the press and on television – national broadcaster SBS presented a 60-minute television program based on the tournament with an estimated 300,000 national viewership (Australian

Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 109 Beach Soccer Cup, 2015a); and international engagement through a range of social media platforms (Australian Beach Soccer Cup, 2015b), including from media outlets reporting in Vanuatu, China, Thailand and Switzerland. The international tournament would be described as a great success. To encourage participation and maximise coverage, organisers managed a larger, domestic competition in conjunction with the international matches – a commendable and effective strategy. Domestic beach soccer The earliest known domestic beach soccer competitions tended to be shortlived tournaments and one-off beach soccer events took place in Kirra on the iconic Gold Coast, Queensland (International Beach Soccer Tournament Comes to Kirra Beach, 2009), and in Coolangatta between 2011 and 2013. Women’s and men’s competitions, supported by the state’s governing body, Football Queensland, in conjunction with Major Events Gold Coast and Destination Gold Coast, were also hosted recently on the beach at Coolangatta (Beach Soccer Carnival, 2022). In New South Wales, a tournament occurred in Coogee, Sydney (Sydney English Language College, 2015) and in 2016 David Zdrilic undertook promotion of a hybridised variation of beach soccer called Gol beach soccer (Hassett, 2016). In Victoria, Melbourne Rovers Soccer Club, Australia’s only fully inclusive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning (LGBTQ+) team, held a beach soccer tournament as part of the St. Kilda Festival (Melbourne Rovers SC, 2010) and, as the headline notes, Melbourne City Hosting Beach Soccer Competition at Geelong’s Eastern Beach (2017), an A-League Men’s team facilitated a festival. The beach soccer tournament established in North Beach, Wollongong, would be Australia’s largest and only sustained formal organised beach soccer activity. The first iteration of the tournament was designed as an exhibition event to introduce and develop the game in tandem with World Cup activity – at this time those involved would not have known the team would not be attending the 2011 AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup. The demonstrative format consisted of four youth teams playing against each other in a division, and four women’s teams and four men’s teams doing the same (WIN TV News, 2010). Former Australian men’s national football team, or Socceroos, players were invited to participate to draw interest and audience engagement, including: David Zdrillic, Steve Corica and Zelco Kalac (Football NSW, 2010). Within two years this platform for beach soccer, secured with high-profile players, a raft of Carnivalesque entertainment, and excellent standard of play became the Australian Beach Soccer Cup (as noted above). Under the guidance of its creator, Portuguese-born former captain of the Timor-Leste men’s national football team, Alfredo Manuel Mousinho Esteves, the event expanded its 2013 and 2014 programs to include both domestic and international competitions. Community members representing different charity groups, including the National Breast Cancer Foundation and the Strategic Community Assistance

110  Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 Refugee Families would compete in an annual charity match. The 2013 event was also timed to coincide with the final matches of the newly established Wollongong Beach Soccer League (WBSL), which ran for seven consecutive years between 2013 and 2019 (Wollongong Beach Soccer, 2019). While the international competitions of the Australian Beach Soccer Cup never continued beyond 2015, the WBSL showed greater potential for longevity. The first WBSL took place in a series of weekly fixtures between early October and late November (Australian Beach Soccer Cup, 2013), and consisted of three competitions for juniors (boys), mixed gender teams, and a men’s league each with eight teams in their respective division. Unfortunately, the competition has not returned since being disrupted by COVID-19. Conclusion Two FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups, two AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cups and a limited, fragmented domestic competition highlight a comparatively unremarkable history. Australian beach soccer’s story, however, enacts and echoes the position of the beach in Australian culture and the turbulent development of its paternal code within the Australian landscape. Where the continental island’s national identity is intrinsically tied to sporting success (Rickard, 2017) and in equal measure to beach culture (Fiske et al., 1987), beach soccer should be successful and popular. There should be no obstacles to its success, and yet despite passionate support from those Australians who do participate, the game has failed to find stable levels of engagement, let alone media attention, funding, and the necessary factors for sustainability. Yet the lack of progress in its development is significant in broader beach soccer contexts. This chapter highlights a beach soccer anomaly. Australia exhibits every factor that has made beach soccer popular elsewhere. A large and growing and enthusiastic community, significant and lengthy histories of women’s and men’s football, and the presence of cultural ideologies heavily informed by its beaches. However, where the pitch facilitates team sports, the Australian beach more ably supports individual exceptionalism. Swimming, surfing, Ironman and Ironwoman competitions – which consist of participation in running, swimming, and paddle boarding – triathlons, comprised of swimming, cycling and running are popular beach or ocean sports that have long histories of success in the country, even if arguably not within mainstream sporting cultures. Beach volleyball might be the exception, but even then, it features only two players, and has the advantage of inclusion in both the Commonwealth and Olympic Games. The summer sporting calendar is involved, featuring cricket, tennis, and burgeoning interest in both netball and basketball (McLachlan, 2019; Sherry & Taylor, 2019; Symons et al., 2022). In the same way its geographical and sociological foundations are continuing to shift in the wake of climate change, it would appear that the Australian beach is a surprisingly unstable foundation for professional team sports (Osbaldiston, 2018). In addition, football’s position within the national sporting landscape

Beach Soccer in Australia 2005–2019 111 is a barrier; greater media revenues and interest are generated by other more established sporting codes. Australian sports fans ‘like a winner’; the success of the women’s national team on the international stage has arguably made them more popular in the mainstream than the men’s national team (Crawford & McGowan, 2019). Australia’s geographical size and isolation present challenges. The tyranny of distance limits access to international competition, as much as it limits potential for national competition within a relatively dispersed population. This chapter offers insight on one nation’s beach soccer and locates it within a specific national context, one that highlights the notion that beach soccer takes its strength and distinctive identity from the places it is played, but it is lessened as a competitive sport, where it is seen as a leisure activity. Acknowledgements The work builds on and adds new insight to discoveries presented in Sea-level playing fields: an exploration of the histories of beach soccer and its practices within one specific context, the Australian beach (McGowan et al., 2020a); and Australian beach soccer: tracing paradoxical narratives (McGowan et al., 2020b) published by this book’s authorial team. References Adair, D. (2009). Australian sport history: From the founding years to today. Sport in History, 29(3), 405–436. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460260903043351 Adair, D., & Vamplew, W. (1997). Sport in Australian history. Oxford University Press. Australian Beach Soccer Cup. (2013, October 5). The 1st Wollongong Beach Soccer League kicked off today at North Beach in Wollongong…. [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/193012587419897/photos/a.401724759882011/ 554214304633055 Australian Beach Soccer Cup. (2015a, March 27). Hi guys here some of the numbers in 2014. Thank you for your support. [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook. com/193012587419897/photos/a.754836377904179/804708172916999/ Australian Beach Soccer Cup. (2015b, March 30). Promoting the tournament. [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/193012587419897/photos/ a.401724759882011/806545952733221 Beach Soccer Carnival. (2022, January 22). Football Queensland. https://footballqueensland.com.au/beach-soccer/ Bonner, F., McKay, S., & McKee, A. (2001). On the beach. Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 15(3), 269–74. http://www.tandfonline. com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304310120086768 Booth, D. (2001). Australian beach cultures: The history of sun, sand, and surf. Frank Cass. BSWW. (2013a, January 26). Iran are the new Asian champions!! Beach Soccer Worldwide. https://beachsoccer.com/iran-are-the-new-asian-champions BSWW. (2013b, July 26). China, champions of the Asian Cup. Beach Soccer Worldwide. https://beachsoccer.com/china-champions-of-the-asian-cup

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Chapter Seven Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021

Introduction The strongest teams in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) today, and across the last 15 years, are the women’s and men’s national association football teams of New Zealand (Aotearoa). The Football Ferns and the All Whites (or Ōmā in Māori), respectively, have each gained qualification to their corresponding FIFA World Cup tournaments through their domination of the relevant OFC Nations Cups: the Ferns have won all four since 2007 and the All Whites have won three of five since 2002. The fortunes and achievements of New Zealand’s national beach soccer teams, however, are not commensurate. The men’s national team participated in one OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup in 2007 (OFC, 2007; OFC Media Officer, 2020). The OFC’s most successful men’s national beach soccer teams, Solomon Islands and Tahiti, are not necessarily reflective or representative of the region’s strongest football teams and sporting investment structures, nor the region’s dominant economic or most populous countries. They are, however, reflective of where beach soccer is most popular. Solomon Islands and Tahiti are described as football nations. As noted later in this chapter, their men’s national football teams have achieved varying degrees of commendable and impressive success; it is their beach soccer teams, however, that have made a mark on the international stage. Oceania and the territories of the OFC are situated within a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, geographically framed by the island continent of Australia and the Philippine, Japanese and Indonesian archipelagos (although these countries are all affiliated to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)). The region is one of the world’s most diverse and geographically widespread environments with – excluding Australia – a combined land mass of approximately 800,000 square kilometres of land, and an estimated population of 16 million people (8.5 m in PNG, 4.8 m in New Zealand, 0.9 m in Fiji (West & Foster, 2020)) unevenly distributed within approximately 15% of the Earth’s surface. Australia is significantly outsized in comparison, with over 7.6 square kilometres of land mass and 26 million people. Oceania is geographically comprised of two interconnected environments that radically differ in terms of their postcolonial, sociocultural, political, and economic realities: Australasia which is DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-7

118  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 comprised of Australia and New Zealand – two nations that exhibit the characteristics of Global Northern countries; and the Pacific Islands, which are commonly organised into three ethno-geographic groupings or sub-regions: Melanesia (including Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu); Micronesia (including Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau); and Polynesia (including American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia with its largest island Tahiti, New Zealand (Aotearoa) (as both an Australasian and Polynesian nation), Niue, Samoa, Rapa Nui, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna). In this chapter, we use the term Pacific Islands to refer to the small island developing states in Oceania regarded as part of the global south. In football terms Australia held OFC membership for two periods between 1966–1972 and 1978–2005. In the period 1990–2005, their participation in OFC competitions was distinguished by their domination and frequent humbling of the weaker, often non-professional teams representing smaller – and unequally resourced – nations, states, and sovereignties. The process did not help the Australian women’s and men’s national football teams who were then ill-prepared for the next stage of World Cup qualification – a one-round knockout/play-off against teams who had gained their match readiness against much better opposition from either the South American or Asian Confederations (Falcous, 2016). In 2005, Football Australia, the sport’s national governing body, surrendered their OFC membership to access the higher quality football, a more competitive World Cup qualification process, and the increased economic and political opportunities associated with their new AFC membership (Falcous, 2016; Hay, 2011). The move also effected the dissolution of Australasia as a footballing categorisation. Now that we have delineated the geographical and footballing structures, for organisational purposes, from this point we situate New Zealand, the only globally northern football nation in the Confederation, within the Polynesian subregion. In terms of geography, economy, and population, the largest Pacific Islands nations are Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Fiji. They are the founding members of OFC, which is the smallest constituent of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). There are eight other national football associations currently situated within and governing organised football in the OFC. Full members are American Samoa; the Cook Islands; French Polynesia (represented by its largest island, Tahiti); New Caledonia; Samoa; Solomon Islands; Tonga; and Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides), and Kiribati and Tuvalu are Associate Members. The latter do not have FIFA membership; they have, however, received financial support from OFC: the Kiribati Islands Football Federation (KIFF) and Tuvalu Islands Football Association (TIFA) each received NZ $30,000 (Toal, 2020). This is a resourcepoor region in world football, but there is a ready supply of sand; and the players, it is said, are born to it. Beach soccer is regarded by the OFC as a growth sport.

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 119 Of the 11 current OFC members eight have been represented by their men’s national beach soccer teams throughout the life of the OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (formerly known as OFC Beach Soccer Championship). This tournament serves as the qualification process for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and has taken place six times to date between 2006 and 2019. The men’s national teams from the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, and Vanuatu have participated. To date, the Cook Islands, New Zealand, and Tonga have competed in one OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup each. OFC are regarded as the weakest of FIFA’s Confederations in footballing terms, which of course, reveals the scale of the region’s beach soccer achievements. Production of two men’s national beach soccer teams that have contemporaneously placed in the world’s top 20 best sides is no small feat. Solomon Islands won four OFC Nations Cups between 2006 and 2013. They are the only team to participate in all six iterations of the tournament. When Solomon Islands men’s national football team were ranked 177 (of 207) in the world by FIFA in 2010 (FIFA Ranking, 2010; Jägers, 2022), their men’s national beach soccer team were ranked 14 in their respective competition (Solomon Star, 2010) – they peaked at 13 in the 2009 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup posttournament report (Steinegger et al., 2009). The only other team to win the OFC Nations Cup, Tahiti, won the 2011 and 2019 tournaments. On both occasions, they were able to exploit the home field advantage. They also hosted the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and attained consecutive runners-up medals at the 2015 and 2017 tournaments. The story of beach soccer in Oceania is not limited to its two most successful nations. However, the combination of their stories offers an insightful representation of the sport’s development in the region. This chapter therefore focuses on the beach soccer histories of Solomon Islands and Tahiti, including the initiation of, and their participation in, the 2006 OFC Nations Cups and their individual periods of overlapping international success. Beforehand, we provide context on each country’s broader football landscape. Along the way, we highlight threads of development in women’s beach soccer, for example in the Cook Islands, Tahiti and Tonga. However, we would note that research on this specific aspect of beach soccer, like the women’s game in general, requires further study. To begin, we offer a brief overview of beach soccer in the wider region. Beach soccer in Oceania Football is popular in Oceania, but in contrast to most other regions, it is not always the most popular sport. In Pacific Islands nations, particularly those in Polynesia, men’s rugby union and rugby league are a great deal more popular. Even where football is popular, the sport is not without its challenges. For most islands, particularly those most strikingly impacted by climate crises, fresh water sources are limited (Iese et al., 2021) and land use is a priority.

120  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 Football pitches can therefore be rare and are always expensive to maintain. There are no turf pitches on the islands of Kiribati for example – all of their football takes place on sand. Tuvalu’s national stadium on Funafuti, the nation’s largest island, is home to the Tuvalu’s only marked-out pitch. Football is so popular, however, the national airport runway (also on Funafuti) becomes a continuous series of kickabouts on the days it is not reserved for the supply of essentials (McGowan et al., 2023). Geography and topology are also challenging (Sherry et al., 2017). The Cook Islands are comprised of 15 islands and tropical atolls with an estimated land mass of 237 square kilometres, which is spread over more than two million square kilometres of ocean (Crocombe, 2022). Complications of logistics, expense, and travel times can impact organisation of national and international sporting competitions. Despite these complications, the Cook Islands Football Association (CIFA) are able to support the game and its range of variants, including burgeoning women’s and men’s beach soccer communities. Indeed, beach soccer has been or is played in all three subregions of Oceania. Melanesia is located within the southwestern Pacific and extends from Sumba in the west to the eastern borders of Tonga. It is comprised of the Arafura Sea, the independent countries of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and the French overseas sui generis collectivity of New Caledonia (or Nouvelle-Calédonie). The term ‘Melanesia’, Mélanésie (in French), is a geographical reference and a problematic cultural designation, which was popularised by French navigator Jules Dumont d’Urville in 1832. Its origins are entrenched in racialised, ethnographic, cartographic, and historical associations with colonisation (see for example, A Long and Unfortunate Voyage, 2003; Webb-Gannon et al., 2018). As a categorisation, the term is inextricably woven into related descriptive language; it is heartening that its more recent acceptance and current use is imbued with more positive meaning (Lawson, 2013). The region is characterised by a vibrant linguistic and cultural diversity, and also those complexities inherent in the legacies of pre- and postcolonialism that effected divisive localism, debilitated state institutions, and limited Government capacity, particularly in terms of economic management and the provision of essential services, like health, education, transport, communication, security and sporting activity (see for example, Dinnen, 2008; Dinnen & Allen, 2018). Melanesia is regarded as a football region. New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu all support football as the nation’s most popular sport. Papua New Guinea also supports a vibrant football community; the PNG women’s national football team are by far the most accomplished in the region, however as far as we know, they do not support a beach soccer program and are not included in this discussion. In Fiji, men’s rugby union is more popular and to count, Fiji Football Association (FFA) are proactive in negotiating sponsorship and promoting their game. The FFA formed in 1963, but men’s football has been popular since the early twentieth century (Prasad, 2013). In the mid-1970s, women’s football emerged at local levels; the women’s

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 121 national team are now one of the strongest in the region (McGowan et al., 2023). The FFA administer the women’s and men’s national teams, domestic competitions and the grassroots game, including a variety of football forms. Fiji men’s national beach soccer team played in the OFC Nations Cup in 2009 and 2011. They lost all five group matches and interest in the game fell away. However, the FFA are developing a national infrastructure and provision of coaching programs with the current coach of the Swiss national beach soccer team, Angelo Schirinzi (Avikash, 2022a), who is a renowned beach soccer coach and consultant and one of the world’s most successful club and international team beach soccer coaches. FFA Technical Director, Timo Jankowski, and Head of Futsal and Beach Soccer, Jerry Sam, organised the 2022 Beach Soccer Championship (OFC Media4, 2022). Fixtures are scheduled around the country and pitches are being developed in the nation’s key football centres in preparation for the inaugural Fijian national beach soccer league in 2023 (Avikash, 2022b). Fiji’s closest neighbours are also managing beach soccer programs. The Fédération Calédonienne de Football (FCF) govern women’s and men’s football in New Caledonia and have been affiliated with the French Football Federation (FFF) since 1928. Their focus has been on the development of the men’s game; their work includes a broad range of popular domestic competition, including support of Oceania’s longest running and highly popular national futsal competition. The New Caledonia women’s national team were one of the first to form in the region in 1983, though inconsistent support from FCF has hindered their progress (McGowan et al., 2023). In terms of beach soccer, the men’s team, ‘les cagous’, have competed in the two most recent OFC Nations Cups. They hosted the 2013 tournament, finishing with a runner’s up medal, and returned to the qualifiers in Tahiti in 2019 with, it would appear, very little beach soccer activity in between (fedcalfoot.com, 2019). They managed a third-place spot. Football is also Vanuatu’s most popular sport. The Ni-Vanuatu have been playing since the early twentieth century. The Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) govern the sport, which is dominated by the men’s game, though the women’s game has undergone significant development in the last decade (McGowan et al., 2023). Vanuatu have earned three runner’s-up medals in the OFC Beach Soccer Nation’s Cup (2006, 2007, 2009) and a third-place finish (2013) across five of six OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cups. They were favourites going into the 2006 tournament (FIFA.com, 2006), which suggests a pre-existing beach soccer culture that should be explored in future research. They only missed the 2011 edition because Port Vila airport was closed by Cyclone Atu (Solomon Times, 2011). The VFF have recently developed a longerterm strategy for beach soccer’s development, including the construction of the country’s first permanent beach soccer pitch and the launch of Vanuatu’s first national beach soccer league (OFC Media4, 2020). Before we discuss the final Melanesian nation, Solomon Islands, in more detail below, we provide an overview of beach soccer activity in Micronesia and Polynesia.

122  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 Micronesia is the name given to the smallest and most northerly subregion of Oceania. With more than 2,100 atolls, islands, and islets distributed throughout approximately 7.4 million square kilometres of ocean, the name belies its size. Most islands are gathered in three archipelagos: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is situated within the larger Mariana archipelago; the Caroline Islands archipelago includes the sovereign island of Palau and the four island groups, Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap that constitute the FSM; and the sovereign Republics of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the more disparate, Kiribati, are regarded in combination as a third archipelago (Hezel & Foster, n.d.). There are a small number of distinct and separate islands, including Guam and Nauru (Hezel, 2013). We are aware of several instances of beach soccer, which highlight a range of football association priorities within the region. The new Marshall Islands Soccer Federation, initiated in 2022, have yet to establish beach soccer; but they have indicated in their social media, where they invite people to play soccer on the beach, that it is likely (SoccerFedMI, 2023). As noted, KIFF host all of their football on sand. Two other instances were managed by the CNMI and Guam football associations, which hold membership for the AFC and would be eligible to participate in the fiercely competitive World Cup qualifiers, the AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup. In response to their identification of the sport as a development priority, CNMI organised beach soccer at the domestic level (Women’s Football, 2014), more recently, however, to the best of our knowledge their focus has been on the grass-based game. Until 2017, Guam, one of the best resourced and most powerful football nations in the region (McGowan et al., 2023), supported several seasons of a men’s domestic beach soccer league. It would appear their focus is also on grass-based football. The cartographical boundaries of Polynesia, the largest of the three subregions, cover a vast territory spanning the Pacific from the Hawaiian Islands in the north to the southern reaches of New Zealand (Aotearoa), and the eastern limits of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). It draws in more than 1,000 islands, including, Niue, Pitcairn Island, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. Five Polynesian nations hold OFC membership and are eligible to participate in the OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup: American Samoa and Samoa, and those nations already noted, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, and Tonga. We discuss Tahiti (French Polynesia), in more detail below. The Cook Islands men’s national beach soccer team participated in the inaugural OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (OFC, 2006). Some bruising defeats highlighted their inexperience and the high quality of beach soccer displayed by their competitors, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, and Vanuatu. They have not returned since. Recently, however, the CIFA supported the 2021 Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee (CISNOC) Beach Games. The event featured a range of sports, including beach soccer. Twelve teams, six in each, contested women’s and men’s divisions. The CISNOC competition gathered so much interest that CIFA facilitated establishment of the first Women’s Beach Soccer Championship, which included adapting Rarotonga’s

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 123 beach volleyball courts for the event (Tran, 2021). The initial tournament also inspired CIFA and CISNOC to support delivery of another tournament in the same format with women’s and men’s divisions in 2022 (Tafau-Levy, 2022a). The first men’s national beach soccer team representing the Kingdom of Tonga, or simply Tonga, participated in the 2019 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup. The results did not go their way, but they did score against Tahiti, which is an achievement. Their participation in the tournament and that goal are the culmination of a program developed by Tonga Football Association (TFA) and Technical Director Kilifi Uele – who holds the record as the world’s oldest player in men’s football to score in a FIFA fixture (43 years of age in 2017, against New Caledonia) (FIFA.com, 2022). The former player, coach, and current OFC Coach Educator guided and mentored the 2019 Tongan beach soccer squad as part of TFA’s beach soccer program. This began a few years’ earlier with the realisation that the only football played on the Tongan islands of Ha’apai was technically beach soccer, described as football by locals. To harness this skillset, the TFA and Uele developed a strategic plan for the game’s development, which includes setting up fixed pitches accompanied by an extensive program of training for players, coaches, and referees (OFC Media4, 2019) – the latter includes a small though significant number of women, which speaks clearly to their participation. Tonga’s position in the sport is expected to change a great deal in the coming years in response to building recognition and strategic support of the game. Tonga’s great sporting rivals Samoa recently introduced a beach soccer program and supported a FIFA sponsored coaching and training program to encourage its development (Tafau-Levy, 2022b). It is clear there is some unevenness in the opportunities, investment, and recognition of beach soccer across Oceania. However, it remains a region that is in some ways very well suited to the practicalities of the sport and its playing requirements. Two specific examples have been selected from within Oceania to provide an opportunity to consider the ways beach soccer has historically developed and the implications of this for the broader region. The beach soccer histories of Solomon Islands and Tahiti are now discussed within their respective Melanesian and Polynesian beach soccer contexts. Solomon Islands Solomon Islands archipelago is comprised of up to 1000 volcanic islands and atolls in the southwest Pacific Ocean (Laracy & Foster, n.d.). The principal and largest island is Guadalcanal, which is home to the nation’s capital, Honiara. Solomon Islands gained independence in 1978. Its systems of governance, political and social structures, and theological frameworks remain heavily informed by its British colonisers (Bennett, 2002). A bloody civil conflict was fought between the peoples of those two large provinces between 1998 and 2003, a period that became known as the ‘Tensions’. The Tensions were compounded by, pre-existing developmental challenges and fuelled by rural-urban

124  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 migration from the most populous island Malaita to Guadalcanal, high unemployment, and land ownership issues (Firth, 2018). The conflict displaced over 35,000 people, fractured primary social services, and crippled an economy (Allen, 2013; Moser, 2007), which remains dependent on development assistance today. In 2004, with the country recovering from the Tensions, struggling with ongoing social, political, and economic instability, and in defiance of seemingly insurmountable odds, the men’s national football team managed a draw (2-2) with then regional powerhouse, Australia (Greco, 2017). The unexpected result secured second place in the 2004 Oceania Nations Cup, a roundrobin tournament, and for the first time a place in the next stage of World Cup qualification process. It is still regarded as a significant moment in Solomon Islands’ post-conflict recovery and its social and sporting histories (Kanemasu, 2023). More recently, the 2020 Solomon Cup Final attracted over 23,000 to the match staged at the Lawson Tama national stadium in Honiara – the estimated 2020 population of Guadalcanal was 155,605 (Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO), n.d.) – and amassed close to 1.4 million views online at a time when the COVID-19 disrupted football world was starving for live matches (Martin, 2020). Football has proven to be a force for peace and unification, and integral to Solomon Islands culture, in which a church and a pitch are the common community structure (Kanemasu, 2023). The national football association, Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF), claim football to be the official national sport (SIFF, 2021). SIFF formed in 1978, but there is evidence of men’s teams forming in the early 1950s and of women playing socially and informally in the 1970s (Kanemasu, 2023). SIFF administer the women’s and men’s national sides and the men’s domestic league competition (Zlotkowski & Jelínek, 2022); their support for the women’s game, the national team and a national women’s league has not always been as consistent (McGowan et al., 2023). Futsal and beach soccer are popular enough for SIFF to support men’s national teams and national league competitions. The men’s national futsal team, Kurukuru, are revered for their domination in the region and their performances at international level. The men’s national beach soccer team, Bilikiki, are named after a sea bird with a distinct walking action, which inspired a popular children’s song (SIFF, 2019a). The bird and song were adopted by the team who perform the song and dance to celebrate a win. Solomon Islands beach soccer Solomon Islands won the 2006 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (formerly OFC Beach soccer championship) hosted by Tahiti. During their participation at the 2006 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, they defeated African champions, Cameroon. The other teams in their group were tournament runners-up Uruguay and Portugal led by Madjer. A year later, Vanuatu topped the roundrobin group stage of the OFC qualifiers 2007, but Solomon Islands defeated

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 125 them in the final to repeat the previous year’s result and win their place as a second FIFA Beach World Cup in 2007. This time their group featured the tournament hosts and winners, Brazil, the tournament runners-up, Mexico, and emerging powerhouse, Russia. In 2008, in lieu of the qualification process, Solomon Islands were selected as the region’s best team to represent OFC; the group stage featured: tournament runners-up, Italy; Portugal, who won third place overall; and the rising star of the North American scene, El Salvador. Solomon Islands did well to win the third match. The 2009 edition of the OFC Nations Cup fell into a familiar pattern: Tahiti hosted, Vanuatu led the group stage, and Solomon Islands won the final, which took them to the United Arab Emirates for the 2009 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. In Dubai, they lost to the hosts, and a Madjer-led Portugal side, but they defeated Uruguay, who would attain a semi-final spot in the tournament. The win against the experienced South Americans is still regarded as one of the great shocks in the prestigious tournament’s history. The region experienced a significant power shift in 2011 when despite the efforts of James Naka and Robert Laua, their best players in a generation, Solomon Islands found themselves three goals down in the opening period and lost the 2011 final against a much-improved Tahiti. The 2013 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup was hosted in Nouméa, New Caledonia, and comprised of the hosts, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. Tahiti had already qualified as hosts of the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and did not take part. Solomon Islands were convincing in their qualification matches and managed a good win against the Netherlands in the World Cup group stages; they have not regained their initial hold on the region’s beach soccer. Historically, football has been the domain of those from Solomon Islands’ Malaita Province. Malaitans now account for a large majority of the population of Honiara, where club football is concentrated (Kanemasu, 2023). Kwai Island, which is within the Malaita Province, has faced the brunt of climate crises, particularly coastal erosion caused by rising sea levels, including the loss of its only turf football pitch to the sea (Mafane, in SIFF, 2019b), its peoples continue to play on its sand. The Kwai Island football community is now integral to the make-up of the men’s national beach soccer side, as it provides as many as half the squad. While the sport is dominated by the men’s championships on the island, there is a thriving women’s social game. Beach soccer is very popular in rural Solomon Islands, where it is encouraged through informal multi-game festival events. In 2016, beach soccer was included in the national multi-sport event, the Solomon Games. The Malaita Football Association (MFA) the regional body, selected Kwai players as its regional representatives in the Games’ beach soccer tournament – the emergence of competition on Kwai Island was relatively new at the time. When the Malaita Eagles won an unexpected gold medal, it indicated strong support for the discipline and more importantly propelled Kwai Island beach soccer into the mainstream conscience. The team embarked on a tour, a series of friendlies, against the Vanuatu national beach soccer team in 2017. In the

126  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 same year, the Sirubai Voko Tribe Association and Western Football Association partnered to host the Western Province’s first beach soccer championship (Abana, 2020). The sport is popular in a province that accommodated three separate beach soccer venues and supported a thriving beach soccer community (Kaniki, 2020). The event, which took place in Kubolia Beach Soccer Stadium, South Vella Island, ran annually for three years before being disrupted by COVID-19 in 2021. The 2019 Kwai Beach Soccer Games were initiated to draw national and international attention to the islands’ environmental plight (Barefoot, 2019). The high quality of beach soccer on the island saw four members of the Kwai Islands community and one from Ngongosilia Island (sister island to Kwai) selected for the Bilikiki for the 2019 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup held in Tahiti. Two very quick goals for hosts Tahiti late in the second period, were enough to win the qualification spot, but it was the closest match between the sides for some time. While the Bilikiki missed out on the World Cup, on the basis of the continental regional rankings, they were selected to represent Oceania at the inaugural Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) World Beach Games (WBG) in Doha, Qatar in 2019. They played well but lost out to three very strong teams in Italy, Spain, and Mexico. It was a busy and productive year for Solomon Islands’ beach soccer. Solomon Islands will soon host the 2023 Pacific Games, the quadrennial continental multi-sport mega-event, which consists of 24 sports and their related categories involving approximately 3,500 participating athletes from across Oceania. SIFF’s recent 2019–2022 Development Plan included administration of a National Beach Soccer Championship and the prioritisation of a competitive women’s football. The hosts of Pacific Games’ had hoped to include women’s and men’s beach soccer as an event, but the list of sports in the Games is, as it must be, carefully controlled. In 2020, SIFF launched the Women’s Premier League, a catalyst to drive regular domestic competition and a platform for national team development to increase the possibility of success at the international tournament. There is much optimism around the impact and legacy the Games will have on Solomon Islands football and its ongoing development, including the increase in and improvement of the currently congested football pitches. Also in 2020, SIFF initiated and administered a National Invitational Beach Soccer Championship with participating teams representing many parts of Solomon Islands. The demonstration of the game’s popularity would see SIFF engage a sponsor in support of their administration of a National Beach Soccer Championship, which began in 2021 (OFC Media Officer, 2021). Like the women’s national league, the National Beach Soccer Championship is aimed at stimulating the growth of the game and identifying players for the National Beach Soccer Team. The next event on Solomon Islands beach soccer calendar is the forthcoming 2023 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup and the potential to qualify for the 2023 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Dubai. In preparation for the tournament, Angelo Schrinzi, one of the world’s best beach soccer coaches has been

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 127 contracted by OFC to support participating OFC nations and their preparation. Schirinzi underlined the need for more, and regular, competition, especially at the elite level and noted that Solomon Islands beach soccer facilities and the game has improved a great deal in recent years (SINIS Media, 2023). Tahiti’s decade-long dominance of beach soccer in the region began with their football association’s recruitment of Schirinzi as coach. Before we examine his work, we contextualise Tahitian beach soccer. Tahiti French Polynesia, Polynésie française, or Pōrīnetia Farāni in Tahitian, is an independent territory of France comprised of over 120 islands, islets and atolls dispersed across five archipelagos (West & Foster, n.d.). The Society Islands archipelago incorporates Tahiti, French Polynesia’s most populous island, home to the capital Papeete, and 69% of the French Polynesian population (World Factbook, 2022). The French colonised the islands in the mid-1800s and almost a century later, in 1946, the French Polynesians were granted French citizenship and voting rights. In 2004, the islands were granted administrative autonomy with their own Head of State, the President of French Polynesia, and designation as an overseas country (République française, 2017). Contemporary life in French Polynesia reflects colonial disruption of indigenous cultural traditions with one possible exception, a nuclear-testing program. The program, which took place between 1962 and 1996, considerably changed the island country, its peoples, and politics. The implications of transgenerational harm from widespread radioactive contamination and the displacement of a significant portion of the population (Ruff, 2015), are given little consideration by a French Government resistant to compensatory measures for those affected (Gonschor, 2021). In its stead, they initiated a scheme of financial incentives aimed at boosting the nation’s economy. The islands’ main source of revenue is tourism (West & Foster, n.d.), particularly the brand that plays to Globally Northern exoticised ideals of tropical islands (Kahn, 2011). Though impacted by the sprawling nature of its geography, concentrations of population and its relationship with France, the sporting landscape of French Polynesia echoes its affluent European authority. Rugby union is popular, particularly where its players are eligible to play for France and gain lucrative professional contracts playing there. Kitesurfing, diving, and surfing are popular – the latter attracts the World Championship tour and other professional competitions. Va’a, traditional outrigger canoeing, which is deeply connected to its Polynesian heritage, is also very popular. The nation’s best paddlers can attain lucrative prizes and sponsorship. There are tensions in women’s Va’a, where professional athletes are often paid less than paddlers who are men for the same events (see McCracken, 2021). While football has been played in Tahiti since the late 1940s, the women’s game is a relatively new phenomenon and while the national governing body is relatively progressive (ftf.pf, 2018),

128  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 Tahitian women footballers regularly negotiate inequalities prevalent in elite women’s sport (McGowan et al., 2023). Football is governed by the Fédération Tahitienne de Football (FTF), which was founded in 1989. It is the most popular sport in French Polynesia; the men’s national team are one of the most consistent and successful competitors in Oceania. While they have never qualified for a FIFA World Cup, they have won the OFC Nations Cup four times: 1973, 1980, 1996, and 2012, when they became the first non-Australasian team to win the tournament (FIFA.com, 2012). FTF are a large and active association: they manage women’s and men’s national football teams; club competitions – with 146 teams spread across Tahiti’s territories, men’s club football is a complex organism (Strang, 2017); the men’s national team and domestic futsal competitions; the women’s and men’s national beach soccer teams; and they coordinate the Festival des Îles (Islands Festival). The annual football festival, referred to as the Tahitian ‘Islanders World Cup’ (ftf.pf, 2019), is a prodigious event, the largest football event in Oceania, that annually brings together over 2000 athletes from 31 different French Polynesian islands, and sometimes other nations, such as Rapa Nui (OFC Media, 2019). Competitions include 11-a-side, futsal and beach soccer for a spectrum of age-ranges and genders. The 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID-19 (Teivao, 2020). There has not been a tournament since. Tahitian beach soccer For over a decade, Tahiti’s men’s national beach soccer team have been the strongest team in Oceania and one the best in world beach soccer. Known as the Tiki Toa, they were the first Pacific Islands nation to qualify from the group stage and compete in the knockout stages of an international FIFA tournament (2013), and the first to progress to the final in a FIFA tournament (2015). They managed a second final, and consecutive runners-up medals, at the 2017 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Five out of six of their World Cup campaigns have seen them progress to the knock-out stages. While their men’s national football team was ranked 152, the Tiki Toa were ranked number seven (Strang, 2017). Their powers have rarely diminished on the world stage. They only failed to emerge from the group stages in the 2019 tournament by a heart-breaking solitary goal scored late in the match. It is a considerable achievement to be ranked among the best in the world; to be consistently ranked among the best, for as long, is more remarkable still. Tahiti has a population of around 304,000 (World Factbook, 2022) with around 18,000 registered players (OFC, n.d.). The Tiki Toa success is an excellent example of the power of beach soccer as a professional sport. Like El Salvador, Iran, Mozambique, and Paraguay, they demonstrate the romantic ideal of football as a sport, potential for a ‘small’ team to make an impact. Tahiti commenced playing international beach soccer with the first qualifying rounds for the 2006 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Staff from Beach

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 129 Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), Fulvio Danilas and Philippe Bourdaris, helped organise and host the inaugural OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup (it was a Championship then) (OFC, 2006). The Tiki Toa did not fare well in the first few years of the game’s development. Their best finish had been third (of three teams) in 2006. They were unable to take advantage of hosting the tournament in 2007 too; however, improved to win when they hosted in 2011 and again in 2019. The period between these victories, the dramatic change and who and what was behind its inspiration, is of interest. In 2010, Angelo Schirinzi, then a FIFA instructor, was on a coaching course with most of the Tiki Toa team. The team then trained with the Swiss national team that Schirinzi played for and coached; the same team he’d led to the 2009 Beach Soccer World Cup final in Dubai (Relhier & Skavelicz, 2012). The Tiki Toa were friends who played beach soccer together: fishermen, firemen, prison guards, office administrators, telecommunications technicians (Strang, 2017). Going into the 2011 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup final Solomon Islands were favourites; they had already defeated Tahiti in the group round. Still, Tahiti won the tournament. The players credited Schirinzi with their qualification for the 2011 Beach Soccer World Cup, and three of the players, Heimanu Taiarui, Angelo Tchen and player-coach Teva Zaveroni, joined Schirinzi’s Bern club, Sable Dancers, who played in the Swiss Beach Soccer League. The Tiki Toa preparation camp involved a series of friendly matches against the Swiss team (OFC Media, 2013). In the group stages of the World Cup in Ravenna, Italy, they defeated Venezuela and lost to Russia and Nigeria. Later in the year, alongside Schirinzi’s Swiss team, the Tiki Toa, played in the inaugural Intercontinental Cup – an annual invitation-only international tournament that takes place in Dubai – finishing in eighth place out of eight. The results reflect the team’s developmental position and learning curve, but would have been a secondary thought to the experience gained in their participation of a third international tournament in 12 months. The following year Schirinzi supported the team through a series of friendlies against the French team and the Tiki Toa also played in a second Intercontinental Cup (2012), where they improved their standing to sixth with a win over the US. Again, the players gained invaluable experience, with some of the team now playing professionally in Europe. Through the work of the now disgraced Reynald Tameraii (Associated Press, 2015), former head of OFC and a former FIFA Vice-President, Tahiti won the bid to host the 2013 Beach Soccer World Cup in the island’s capital, Papeete (ABC News, 2013). The team’s fourth-place finish in the tournament was a surprise to most (Tahiti Infos, 2013); however, as the hosts, they had not needed to participate in the 2013 OFC qualifiers, and their significant improvement had gone unnoticed. By the time the tournament arrived, the Tiki Toa were an experience battle-hardened team being formally coached by Schirinzi. The team worked their way through the group stages defeating United Arab Emirates and the US. Their first loss of the tournament was in the group stage to Spain, eventual runners-up. Their second loss was in the

130  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 semi-final to Russia (tournament winners), and their third was against Brazil in the third-place play-off, which was decided on penalties after an incredible 14-goal draw. With no OFC tournament in either 2015 or 2017, the OFC nominated Tahiti to represent the region at the corresponding World Cups. In the group stages of the 2015 tournament, Tahiti defeated Madagascar, Paraguay and, in a shock result, then reigning champions Russia. On the way to the final, they also defeated Iran and Italy and gave Portugal, tournament hosts and one of the strongest teams in Europe, a big scare in a closely fought contest. Jonathon Torohia picked up the Golden Glove for tournament’s best goalkeeper and Heimanu Taiarui won the Golden Ball award for best player (Strang, 2017). In the 2015 Intercontinental Cup, they could not repeat the result against Russia who won the final. However, the Tiki Toa were at the height of their powers. At the 2016 Intercontinental Cup, narrow losses to Iran in the semi-final and to Russia in the third-place play-off can only be viewed in the context of performing at the highest level against two of the world’s best. In the Bahamas in 2017, the only barrier to their winning the World Cup was an indomitable Brazilian team, arguably one of the best beach soccer teams ever assembled. The Tiki Toa defeated Japan, Poland, and Paraguay (quarter-final), and won a very close match against Iran (semi-final). A close final against Solomon Islands aside (O’Kane, 2019), they won the regional qualifier with relative ease to participate in the 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in the specially built stadium in Paraguay. The tournament is marked with the heartbreak of not qualifying for the knock-out stage on the difference of a late Uruguayan goal. One more goal and the Tiki Toa would have played Japan in the quarter-final. With the 2021 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup cancelled due to COVID-19, Tahiti as reigning regional champions went to Moscow where they defeated UAE, Spain, and Mozambique in the group stages only to be knocked out in the quarter-final by Japan, eventual tournament runners-up. The Tiki Toa’s success on the international stage is built on the foundations of strong regular competition at the domestic level where there is an elite men’s competition, a small women’s league and a diverse array of events and festivals for beach soccer players from Under 11s to seniors. The investment in development underpins succession planning and continued participation at international level. The consistent, competitive presence of Tahiti between 2011 and 2021 and of Solomon Islands from 2006 to 2013 highlights a proud heritage for beach soccer in Oceania. Conclusion The forthcoming men’s 2023 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup will most likely take place in Papeete, Tahiti. For the first time, there is a high probability that six nations will participate: Fiji, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, and Vanuatu. The winners will qualify for the 2023 FIFA Beach Soccer

Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 131 World Cup, the second to be hosted in Dubai later in the year. Tahiti, currently number 13 in the world, are playing on their own pitch and are favourites to win. If they make it, it would be their seventh consecutive Beach Soccer World Cup. However, Solomon Islands are undertaking intense preparation (SINIS, 2023). Each football association has invested in the development of beach soccer and in their preparation for the tournament, including exploiting opportunities to build their expertise and experience prior to the tournament with visits from Schirinzi and other FIFA coaches and educators. OFC have supported recent instances including the establishment of new facilities, Ha’apai, Tonga and regular local competition in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Facilities are lacking in the region; where training and games might be dependent on the tide it will always be more difficult to keep up with developments in other confederations. However, where the players are ‘born on the sand’, they have proven to bring something special to international tournaments. This chapter has examined the beach soccer histories of two countries in Oceania and in doing so has presented the contemporary state of play in the region, including some insight of the rise of beach soccer in Tonga, a rising star in the region and its development in Fiji and Vanuatu. References A Long and Unfortunate Voyage Towards the “Invention” of the Melanesia/Polynesia Distinction 1595–1832. (I. Ollivier, Trans.) (2003). The Journal of Pacific History, 38(2), 175–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/0022334032000120521 Abana, S. (2020, January 10). Sirubai concludes Beach Soccer tournament. Solomon Islands Football Federation. https://www.siff.com.sb/sirubai-concludes-beachsoccer-tournament/ ABC News. (2013, September 19). Tahiti emerging as strong contenders for Beach Soccer World Cup. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-19/an-beach-soccer-kickoff/4967946 Allen, M. G. (2013). Resisting RAMSI: ‘Intervention, identity and symbolism in Solomon Islands. Oceania, 79(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461. 2009.tb00047.x Associated Press. (2015, May 14). Former FIFA vice-president Reynald Temarii banned for eight years. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/ 13/fifa-reynald-temarii-banned-eight-years-ethics Avikash. (2022a, December 6). Beach soccer league to roll. Fiji Football Association. https://www.fijifootball.com.fj/beach-soccer-league-to-roll/ Avikash. (2022b, May 3). Fiji FA beach soccer boost. Fiji Football Association. https:// www.fijifootball.com.fj/fiji-fa-beach-soccer-boost/ Barefoot. (2019, July 3). The rising stars of the Sinking Island (pp. 68–69). BSWW. https:// issuu.com/beachsoccerworldwide/docs/barefoot_10_2019_july_rgb_paginas_c Bennett, J. (2002). Roots of conflict in Solomon Islands though much is taken, much abides: Legacies of tradition and colonialism. Discussion Paper 2002/5. Research School of Pacific and Asia Studies, Australian National University. https://openresearchrepository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/41835/3/bennett02-5.pdf

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134  Beach Soccer in Tahiti and Solomon Islands 2006–2021 OFC Media Officer. (2020, September 21). NZ’s lone beach soccer appearance. oceaniafootball.com. https://www.oceaniafootball.com/nzs-lone-beach-soccer-appearance/ OFC Media Officer. (2021, May 19). Semi-Finals await Solomons Beach Soccer. oceaniafootball.com. https://www.oceaniafootball.com/semi-finals-await-in-solomonsbeach-soccer/ OFC Media4. (2019, June 16). TauTahi set to create history. oceaniafootball.com. https://www.oceaniafootball.com/tautahi-set-to-create-history/ OFC Media4. (2020, October 23). Vanuatu beach soccer on the rise again. oceaniafootball. com. https://www.oceaniafootball.com/vanuatu-beach-soccer-on-the-rise-again/ OFC Media4. (2022, December 7). Fiji Beach Soccer champs decided. oceaniafootball. com. https://www.oceaniafootball.com/fiji-beach-soccer-champs-decided/ Prasad, M. (2013). The history of Fiji football association 1938–2013. Fiji Football Association. Relhier, G., & Skavelicz, S. (2012, September 14). Swiss Beach Soccer Team – Angelo Schirinzi: “I love this sport”. Number 5.fr. http://www.number5.fr/Equipe-deSuisse-de-Beach-Soccer-Angelo-Schirinzi-J-aime-ce-sport_a348.html République française. (2017). Les statuts de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et de la Polynésie (trans. The statutes of New Caledonia and Polynesia). https://www.collectiviteslocales.gouv.fr/statuts-nouvelle-caledonie-et-polynesie Ruff, T. A. (2015). The humanitarian impact and implications of nuclear test explosions in the Pacific region. International Review of the Red Cross (2005), 97(899), 775–813. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383116000163 Sherry, E., Schulenkorf, N., Seal, E., Nicholson, M., & Hoye, R. (2017). Sport-fordevelopment in the South Pacific region: Macro-, meso-, and micro-perspectives. Sociology of Sport Journal, 34(4), 303–316. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2017-0022 SIFF. (2019a). Bilikiki. Solomon Islands Football Federation https://www.siff.com.sb/ development/beach-soccer/ SIFF. (2019b, December 10). Kwai island in east Malaita attracts 20 teams who graced the sand at the inaugural Kwai Beach Soccer championship today [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/solomonislandsfootball/posts/kwaiisland-in-east-malaita-attracts-20-teams-who-graced-the-sand-at-the-inaugur/ 1010745029276413/ SIFF. (2021). About SIFF. Solomon Islands Football Federation https://www.siff.com. sb/about-siff/ SINIS Media. (2023, February 22). SINIS conducts technical course for beach soccer. Solomon Islands. Solomon Times. https://www.solomontimes.com/news/sinisconducts-technical-course-for-beach-soccer/12437 SoccerFedMI. (2023, February 16). Where’s your favourite kind of place to play football? On a sunny warm beach like here in the Marshall Islands? @SoccerFedMI [Tweet; image attached]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/SoccerFedMI/status/1626183443510923266 Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) (n.d.). Population: Projected population by province 2010–2025. https://www.statistics.gov.sb/statistics/ social-statistics/population Solomon Star. (2010, January 29). Bilikiki ranked fourteenth in the world. https://www. solomonstarnews.com/sports/national/2347-bilikiki-ranked-fourteenth-in-the-world Solomon Times. (2011, February 23). Vanuatu pulls out of tournament. https://www. solomontimes.com/news/vanuatu-pulls-out-of-tournament/5908 Steinegger, P., Emile, H., & Ongaro, R. (2009). FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Dubai 2009 technical report and statistics 16 – 22 November 2009. FIFA Technical Study

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Chapter Eight Beach Soccer in 2023

For almost a century beach soccer has been central to the beach communities of Rio de Janeiro. The Cariocas are its inventors, not just the progenitors of its organisation and its initial codification or even the repurposing and refinement of the game from its paternal code. In taking football to the beach, they collectively redesigned its form and refashioned its foundational skills out of temporal and spatial necessity. Beach soccer is differentiated from football by its style, the tricks and flicks and bicycle kicks, the acrobatics and aerial grace borne of the landscape and vibrance of its cultural origins. In the interests of precision, we would therefore reposition Giancarlo Signorini’s 1992 model, which is a substantive contribution to beach soccer’s evolution, as an influential modification rather than its invention. The smaller pitch and shorter games are a physical necessity for the rapid movement and goal-scoring frequency that make the modern game so compelling. The disproportionately large goals are demonstrative of the game’s development in the United States (US) where low-scoring sporting contests are denigrated. These factors must be acknowledged. They are essential to the current sport’s burgeoning popularity. In the three decades since beach soccer’s dynamic revision and commercialisation, it has developed into an expansive professional sport with serious global reach, which if anything only looks set to continue its rapid growth. The nature of that growth might just be its central future concern. Were we to consider the book’s structure in match terms, where its purpose is context, we would position the opening chapters as the first of three periods of play. Chapter 1 is concerned with the range of overlapping narratives and tensions and in situating beach soccer within the relevant sporting landscape; it establishes the framework for the book’s operation and provides an overview of the related research. Chapter 2’s examination of sport’s primary location underpins our study with necessary topographical insight. Beach histories are as important here and as appropriate as footballing histories. The second period of play is the capture, in Chapter 3, of a brief cohesive integration of new and known beach soccer histories and the sport’s chronological development from its origins in Copacabana to its contemporary state of play on the international stage. Where detailed coverage of the game’s profile in every nation, state and sovereignty is beyond the scope and scale of this study, we DOI: 10.4324/9781003288541-8

Beach Soccer in 2023 137 have elected to examine beach soccer histories that highlight its international profile, its significant historical origins, important stages in its development, and illustrate a small number of outliers, particularly where they reflect a subversion of norms in football. The chapters in the third period of the book’s play, Four through Seven, could therefore be categorised as ‘exemplars’ designed to deepen knowledges and territories touched on in the brief historical outline offered in Chapter 3. The first, Chapter 4, elaborates key moments in the sport’s initiation in Brazil and tracks its development from the early 1920s to the 1990s when elements of its form are reshaped. Chapter 5 connects the patchwork of competitions in the US across their first two decades. Until recently the US was arguably a football malcontent; US beach soccer demonstrates that a little rebellion can be good for a sport. In contrast, Chapter 6 highlights a country where beach soccer should be popular but cannot find its way; it asks if individual exceptionalism in its popular beach sports is incompatible with a team sport like beach soccer or if distance is the real obstacle to domestic competition and international tournament participation. Chapter 7 highlights beach soccer’s capacity for enablement, small Pacific Islands finding their feet on the world stage. When placed side by side, these histories of beach soccer reveal a range of approaches, tensions, divergences, competing interests, community engagement, and commercial opportunity. Under the forthright and watchful guidance of Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), and, consequently, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international beach soccer calendar is in rude health. Through their partnership with BSWW, FIFA have woven beach soccer into their suite of football products. With the support of BSWW, they encourage the sport in their membership – national football associations – through provision of substantial infrastructure. BSWW were instrumental in the establishment of the biennial FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup (November–December), they supported the biennial women’s and men’s World Beach Games tournaments (August), organised by the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), and administer delivery of the biennial Confederation level qualifiers (March–June) for the men’s tournaments in these mega-events. The participating teams in the ANOC World Beach Games women’s beach soccer tournament are determined through two processes: Confederation qualification processes similar to the men’s game, the European teams for example; and invitation, where a Confederation level qualification tournament is not possible due to the limited number of established teams. Limited team numbers remain an obstacle to delivery of a FIFA Women’s Beach Soccer World Cup and arguably the reason beach soccer has not yet been fully embraced by the Olympic movement. We must note clear signs of intent from BSWW in establishing beach soccer as an Olympic sport. Investment in and development of the women’s game are an essential part of BSWW’s strategy for the sport’s acceptance by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). There are barriers to navigate, sports team quotas for example, but the target is the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which should offer rich memories of the

138  Beach Soccer in 2023 fledgling BSC tournament on Hermosa Beach alongside the 1994 FIFA men’s World Cup. Until now BSWW focused on delivering the game through traditional football channels, including national associations, and having found their feet – or are at least well on their way to doing so – they are channelling their energies into holding the torch. This ambition of BSWW is warranted. With few exceptions (such as those in the US), the organisation and or their officers have informed, consulted on, or been directly responsible for much of the world’s beach soccer activity. Currently, they administer as many as 300, mostly professional, international events in over 30 countries involving close to 200 national and/or club teams across a range of age groups including women’s and men’s senior level and men’s Under 16 and Under 18 (BSWW, n.d.a). On the surface, there is distance between BSWW and FIFA. We see this in the invitational nature of BSWW’s international events and the establishment of the regulatory FIFA Beach Soccer unit tasked by world football’s governing body to take carriage of World Cup competitions. There are a small number of distinctions between these organisations, in their intent, their structures and purpose. There is also imbrication of staffing and organisational roles, the relationship between these organisations is symbiotic, a practical measure as much as an indication of strength in networks. The relationship facilitates delivery of the numerous high-profile international tournaments on the calendar. In a little over a decade the annual men’s Intercontinental Cup (November) has carved out a prestigious reputation for its standard of play. The initial edition of the women’s equivalent, billed as the closest tournament in the women’s game to a beach soccer World Cup, took place in the lead, up to the 2021 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Moscow. The second edition is yet to occur. Where these events are invitational and their organisation dependent on player and team availability, the event schedules are less secure than they are in the men’s game. Less an echo of football, this is a resounding marker that the challenges faced by women’s beach soccer are more than reminiscent of those faced by women in football (see for example, Chapter 5). Another important international tournament is the beach soccer Mundialito (June/ July/August), which began in 1994 in Brazil before finding its home in Portugal in 1997. Except for 2015, the tournament was held there annually until COVID-19 halted history. The most recent edition of the competition took place in Gran Canaria, Spain in 2022, alongside an important augmentation, the first women’s beach soccer Mundialito in the same location. As well as the international trophies, BSWW are behind a sweeping range of tours, exhibition tournaments and friendlies each year (BSWW, n.d.b; Cruickshank n.d.) including the men’s Euro Beach Soccer Cup (1998–2016); the men’s Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL) (since 1998); the men’s Euro Winners’ Cup (since 2012); the men’s Mundialito de Clubes (since 2011); and the men’s Persian Beach Soccer Cup (since 2017). The Women’s Euro Winners’ Cup, which started in 2016 (Garry, 2016), is believed to have been the forerunner for the current, thriving professional Women’s Euro Beach Soccer

Beach Soccer in 2023 139 League (WEBSL). New events and tournaments include the 2023 Acapulco Cup and the club competition, the Americas Winners’ Cup with teams from Brazil, the US, and three from El Salvador (Cruickshank n.d.). In addition, through affiliate status, BSWW hold advisory capacity in support of the ANOC World Beach Games and their regional counterparts, the African, Asian, Mediterranean and South American Beach Games as well as the beach soccer events hosted as part of the European Games. BSWW and FIFA often work together in the design and provision of resources, development and coaching, training programmes alongside and in support of the World Cup tournaments, and in consulting on existing national championships. There are now regular senior professional competitions in Europe, and North and South America. New competitions in Asia are being introduced. In South Asia, the first Indian men’s national championship, featuring 20 teams across four divisions, took place in Surat, a city in the western state of Gujarat (Beach soccer c’ship in Surat, 2023). Established competitions are growing. Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) staff anticipate that for the first time since 2007 six teams will participate in the 2023 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup. In the US, the North American Sand Soccer Association (NASSC) will again manage the prestigious US Open for professional men’s and women’s football. Soccer in the Sand events and the Pro-Am Beach Soccer (PABS) tour are among those burgeoning back to vivid life in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The simultaneous scheduling of the women’s and men’s tournaments marks a significant shift in BSWW policy and world beach soccer’s development. In the year’s third, large international event, the Neom Games (October), the women’s and men’s competitions will run at the same time. Alongside multiple international invitationals featuring the world’s best women’s teams, there is a flourishing range of women’s competitions at Confederation levels in Europe, South America, and Oceania. They are arguably most advanced in Europe where the men’s EBSL has been in continuous existence since 1997 and the women’s game has been popular, if not as well organised and supported, for over a decade. Women’s competitions in England, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Spain are of a very high standard. There are established competitions in a range of other countries; the European women’s circuit in particular is evolving rapidly. The same can be said of the women’s game in South America. With teams from Paraguay and Brazil already marking their place in international standings, the quality of beach soccer, player numbers and popularity of the game have grown quickly in less than five years. While not yet operating at the continental level in Oceania, there have been developments in localised women’s matches in the Cook Islands and Sāmoa. A depth of optimism surrounds the future of international and club level women’s beach soccer. Optimism may be an integral factor in the rapid growth of international beach soccer, which affords nations that may not have the resources or capacity to secure recognition for achievement. Nations that would not otherwise be able to compete in association football, such as The Bahamas, Seychelles, or Tahiti, have or are able to host a beach soccer World Cup. This is in addition to

140  Beach Soccer in 2023 teams from small football nations performing well at the highest levels. These locations, alongside beach soccer’s inherent marketability, are a key factor in increasing interest. While its cultural heritage, the celebratory musical accompaniment, and ‘celebrity’ participants (former association football players), alongside those contemporary expert players, remain integral to its popularity, the game’s structural breaks, the three 12 minutes periods, acrobatic playmaking and frequent high goal counts also attract media and public attention, make live streaming easy to promote, and provide excellent content for distribution via social media platforms. Material realisation of the sport’s potential for growth is bound to FIFA; it encouraged them to sign on as a partner in 2005, along with their sponsors. In turn, their presence, imprimatur, organisational weight, and networks continue to generate interest and investment. The histories unpacked in this book provide a sense of how the game arrived at its current state of play, realise a foundational base on which to build future opportunities for research, and highlight how much there remains to learn. Future research Portugal lost to France in the 2005 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. The men’s national team have won the trophy twice. The nation hosted the annual Mundialito tournament 22 times in 23 years. They won seven, finished runners-up 12 times and were one of only three teams to wrestle the trophy from the dominant Brazilians (who won it twice as many times). In the early development of Portugal’s international side, Hernâni Madruga Neves, a former footballer, was their best player at least until the arrival of João Victor Saraiva, known as Madjer, who is hailed as the greatest ever. Amid many aspects of Portuguese beach soccer worthy of study – Madjer’s career, the Mundialito, the team’s World Cup consistency for example – an examination of these two players’ overlapping contribution would reveal much about the sport’s late 1990s transition from the reliance on former professional footballers to dedicated professional beach soccer players. Research on the cultural aspects of beach soccer is rare, so the study on the impact of social factors shaping Portuguese beach soccer players is invaluable (Ferreira, 2017). We highlight these elements of the histories to be unpacked in Portugal’s beach soccer as an exemplar of studies to be undertaken across any number of European nations. There is much to learn of BSWW’s history in Europe and those nations that have thrived in the world’s longest running beach soccer professional competitions. A recurrent, if incongruous theme of the European game is what we would term ‘beachlessness’, those nations not known for their beach culture that have fostered high profile, high quality, beach soccer teams. The men’s and women’s leagues in Poland and Russia, for example, would be notable for their incredible standards of play; the rise of the club-level teams in Estonia and their domination of the Baltic Sea & Scandinavian Beach Soccer League will offer many surprising aspects of Northern European beach soccer culture; and the story of the game in landlocked Switzerland – with those early women’s

Beach Soccer in 2023 141 matches; its maturing professional league; the men’s national team’s success; and the work of Angelo Schirinzi would all be worthy topics for investigation. Those countries subverting expectation in other regions offer rich territory for exploration. Brazilian players have made a remarkable impact in Japan. Ozu Moreira, Brazilian-born Japanese citizen and the first Japanese player to score 100 international goals, is perhaps better known for his energetic leadership in Japanese beach soccer (FIFA.com, 2019). The frequency of the Iranian men’s team defeating the world’s best teams in tournament matches has made them one of the most popular teams in beach soccer. Their journey to the sport’s elite levels and their ability to maintain their presence there make a fascinating narrative. As does the explosion of beach soccer on the Arabian Peninsula, with Oman, Bahrain, and UAE all performing well in Asia. El Salvador has created a proficient beach soccer set up, enabled successful women’s and men’s team, and built an admirable reputation for hosting tournaments. Canada is represented in international women’s beach soccer by a single enthusiastic club team that has become an engine driving the sport locally and nationally. The story of the rise of Senegal as the powerhouse of African beach soccer and the more recent emergence of Mozambique offer similarly fertile ground for exploration. The OFC encourage participation whatever the territory and team size, which makes beach soccer an efficacious and – in some social, economic, and geographical respects – arguably inevitable alternative to playing on often rare full-sized football pitches. The conceptual underpinning presented in OFC’s engagement strategies across all football codes, exemplified in their Just Play community development programme (Ratuva, 2011) and their ALL IN: OFC Women’s Football Strategy 2027 (OFC, 2021), is that it is more important to play than wait for the right equipment or the carefully measured field of play; football can and should be played anywhere. This approach dramatically diverges from common ‘pay and play’ approaches favoured in neighbouring Australia and the US (see for example Jeanes & Lucas, 2019). The successes of the region’s teams against stronger continental opposition might suggest it is one that is worthy of further consideration. There are other types of stories here. BSWW is a commercial organisation; their primary objective is to grow the game. While they take their responsibilities very seriously, there are tensions in their work that raise important questions. The Neom Games, which take place in the eponymous megaproject in Saudi Arabia, arguably highlight beach soccer’s employment in a soft power approach to the promotion of a spectacular property development (Boykoff, 2022). A supplementary layer of tension emerges where these events have garnered favourable attention for their promotion of women’s sport, including beach soccer. BSWW have established a Beach Soccer Foundation to support community engagement activities around their events; initiatives and partnerships include collaborating with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) to raise awareness around skin cancer, working with youth development organisations, and driving beach clean-up and other environmentally conscious activities. Like the Neom example, challenges for the organisation emerge in the spaces between intent

142  Beach Soccer in 2023 and consequence, accessibility and profit, the lines between assisting a community and their unwitting exploitation, and promoting a beach sport amid global climate crises. As the organisation grows it is working on opportunities to build impactful outcomes into its expansive operations. Working within these tensions and the other aspects of the game highlighted here underline this book’s position as a first step towards further research. Seizing the opportunity The 2023 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup will take place in the United Arab Emirates. The qualifying competitions will all take place in between March and June and the tournament itself in Dubai in October. The 2025 edition in Seychelles will be the first to be hosted on the African continent, meaning each continental confederation will have hosted at least one men’s FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. Where the football of the twenty-first century has been characterised by negotiations for rights, securing gainful sponsorship and developing strategies for revenue generation (Chadwick et al., 2022), these tournaments, adorned with the FIFA’s branding and sponsorship portfolio, highlight beach soccer’s cultivation of its place within the broader frameworks of professional football. Its growth, popularity, professionalism, and challenges, closely resemble those of association football, and yet still beach soccer brings something else. It is a fast, sharp, limber goal frenzy, enhanced by the players’ dynamic tumbling abilities, condensed into three periods of 12 minutes. Unlike football, its commercial imperatives have been (sun)baked into its make-up during an absorbing developmental adolescence. European nations continue to invest, the scope and scale of the game in the US is largely unrealised by those outside of the sport, and Pacific Islands nations are exploiting their natural resources – participants and landscape. The players on Kwai Island (Solomon Islands), Ha’apia (Sāmoa) or Lifou beach (New Caledonia) are the same as those players honing their natural instincts in the peladas and kickabouts on city streets. They are preparing themselves for opportunities they may not know even exist. We have highlighted beach soccer’s critical historical developments, key issues, and themes, and contextualised them within the landscape of its paternal code; in doing so, we hope to have demonstrated the game’s heritage, growth, and visible contemporary position on the world’s football landscape. There is more to beach soccer than sports science. By its nature beach soccer is positioned as hybrid exercise, somewhere between leisure activity, competitive practice (Oliveira & Osborne, 2018), and, we argue, an increasingly commercial enterprise. It tells us about cultural and national identities and is played on and represents a landscape significantly under threat; yet in some contexts, its touristic and other commercial opportunities could be exploited for the benefit of a range of coastal cultures. This dynamic is of great interest. Every social, economic, and cultural driver encountered in researching the game, points to growth; those community members we met with are focused on growth; the organisations, from BSWW and FIFA to the local community organisations in Australia, benefit from the game’s expansion. This offers exciting prospects for

Beach Soccer in 2023 143 the authors as researchers; however, as fans, we would rather see this growth be directed for good, for investment in local teams and the game’s culture. While there is evidence of increased participation of women and a focus on the development of junior players, these areas of the game require more respect and attention. They are, after all, the game’s future. Investment in local teams and growth should be guided by greater awareness of climate crises and their impacts on beaches globally. Beach soccer’s nascent potential is considerable. Unlike football’s wrestle with societal change post-establishment, beach soccer has the opportunity to be better as it grows. References Beach soccer c’ship in Surat. (2023, January 26). The Times of India. http://timesofindia. indiatimes.com/articleshow/96696550.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_ medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst Boykoff, J. (2022). Toward a theory of sportswashing: Mega-events, soft power, and political conflict. Sociology of Sport Journal, 39(4), 342–351. https://doi.org/ 10.1123/ssj.2022-0095 BSWW. (n.d.a). Who we are. Beach Soccer Worldwide. https://beachsoccer.com/whowe-are BSWW. (n.d.b). History. Beach Soccer Worldwide. https://beachsoccer.com/history Chadwick, S., Widdop, P., Anagnostopoulos, C., & Parnell, D. (Eds.). (2022). The Business of the FIFA World Cup. Routledge. Cruickshank, M. (n.d.). Women’s beach soccer. The Roon Ba. https://theroonba.com/ beachsoccer/women/2023.html Ferreira, F. O. (2017). Processos Identitários no Desporto: o Caso Específico do Futebol de Praia [Identity processes in sport: The specific case of beach soccer]. Dissertação do Mestrado. Universidade do Porto. https://sigarra.up.pt/fcup/en/ PUB_GERAL.PUB_VIEW?pi_pub_base_id=234941 FIFA.com. (2019, October 31). Ozu: I turned down Brazil because I fell in love with Japan. https://www.fifa.com/tournaments/mens/beachsoccerworldcup/paraguay2019/ news/ozu-i-turned-down-brazil-because-i-fell-in-love-with-japan Garry, T. (2016, July 29). Women’s Beach Soccer: Sun, sea, sand, bicycle kicks and a European Championship. BBC Sport. www.bbc.com/sport/football/36908223 Jeanes, R., & Lucas, R. (2019). Who owns community sport? In Jeanes, R., & Lucas, R. (Eds.) Who owns sport? (pp. 46–58). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9780429285356 OFC. (2021). All in: OFC Women’s Football Strategy 2027. oceaniafootball.com https://www.oceaniafootball.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/All-INOFC-Womens-Football-Strategy-compressed.pdf Oliveira, A. de B., & Osborne, R. (2018). “Deixa Amor”: A Cultura do Futebol de Praia na Perspectiva de um Grupo de Lazer. [“Leave love”: The culture of beach soccer from the perspective of a Leisure Group]. LICERE – Revista Do Programa De Pós-graduação Interdisciplinar Em Estudos Do Lazer [Journal of the Interdisciplinar Post-graduate Program in Leisure Studies], 21(3), 1–27. https://doi.org/ 10.35699/1981-3171.2018.1861 Ratuva, A. (2011). Fiji Football Launches Just Play. Fiji Sun. http://fijisun.com. fj/2011/04/05/fiji-football-launches-just-play/

Index

Page number in italics indicate figure. AFC see Asian Football Confederation AFL see Australian Football League ALL IN: OFC Women’s Football Strategy 2027 141 ALPFC see American League of Professional Football Clubs American Denim 72 American League of Professional Football Clubs (ALPFC) 84 American Soccer League (ASL) 84 Andrew Watson Institute 40 ANOC see Association of National Olympic Committees anthropogenic climate crises 24 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) 37, 49, 53, 106 ASL see American Soccer League association football 4, 25, 40, 45 Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) World Beach Games 55, 137 Australia 12, 24, 25, 28, 31, 117 Australian Football League (AFL) 103 Australian Women’s Soccer Association (AWSA) 105 Australian rules football 104 AWSA see Australian Women’s Soccer Association Bahamas 26 Barcelona 1, 47 The Beach 24 beach: as a conceptual whole 24; as a conflict site 25–27; as a leisure site 27–28, 32; as a space/place 23; as a sporting activity site 28–32; beach

sports 30; class status issues in 26; coastal tourism 26–27; definition 23; disadvantages of 24; experiences, hierarchies in 26; great leveller 26; history of football 38–41; history of 23; importance of 23; landscape type of 24; soccer history 42–49; social sports 30; sports and natural affordances of 31; sports definition 29; sports, gendered nature of 31–32 beach culture 11, 31, 140 ‘beach lovers’ 26 ‘beachlessness’ 140 beach soccer 1, 7, 10, 24, 29, 31, 32, 38, 44, 51, 57, 67, 70, 71, 74, 89, 93, 117, 136, 137; as an opportunity 142–143; beach culture 11; BSWW and issues with 141–142; BSWW, tours and role in 138–139; dynamic tensions due to 2; FIFA and World Cup 49–54; football literature 5–7; future research 140–142; history of 42–49; literature 7–8; marketability of 140; research categories 7; social 29; sports science aspects of 7; tenets of 1; vs. football 1–2, 12–13, 136, 142; women’s 54–56 Beach Soccer Championships (BeSoCha) 94 Beach Soccer Company (BSC) 45, 46, 47, 57, 91 beach soccer culture 45 beach soccer goalkeeper 82

Index  145 beach soccer history: as a commercial enterprise 45; Beach Soccer Company 45, 46, 47; Beach Soccer Worldwide 48; Brazil, origins in 42, 44; BSWW and role in 44; European Pro Beach Soccer League 47; FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 48–49; FIFA in 49–54; International Beach Soccer Association 45; Law No. 2102/2016 42; Major Beach Soccer 45; North American Sand Soccer Championship 45; Octagon Koch Tavares 48; pelada (kickabout) 42; Pro Beach Soccer Tour (1996/1997) 46; Pro Beach Soccer 47–48; Rio de Janeiro, origins in 42, 44; timeline 43; US Sand Soccer Federation 45; women’s 54–56; World Beach Soccer Championships 46 beach soccer in Australia: Beach Socceroos 105–109; domestic beach soccer 109–110; football and sports 103; football history 103–105; importance of beaches in 102–103, 110; importance of sports in 103 beach soccer in Brazil: as a culture 66; commercialised vs. communitybased versions 73–74; early tournaments and beach goers 71; football in Brazil 67–70; game codifications 72; origins of 70–71, 74; social tensions due to 71–72, 74; socialization mechanism 70; version and key tenets 72–73; world championships 73 beach soccer in Melanesia 120–121 beach soccer in Oceania: Cook Islands 122–123; Fiji 120–121; Melanesia 120–121; Micronesia 121; New Caledonia 121; pitches in 119–120; Polynesia 122–123; Samoa 123; Tonga 123; Vanuatu 121 beach soccer in Solomon Islands: ‘Tensions’ 123–124; championships 126, 127; football in 124; Malaita role in 125, 126; Pacific Games (2023) 126; Solomon Islands Football Federation 124; world cup matches 124–125

beach soccer in Tahiti: Fédération Tahitienne de Football 128; French role 127; origins and development 128–129; sports and gender issues 127–128; Tiki Toa and world rankings 128; world cup matches 129, 130 beach soccer in United States: Beach Soccer USA Championships 94; developments in 21st Century 91–95; Dick Whalen’s tournament 90; goalkeeper and goal ratios 82; Major Beach Soccer 89, 96; modern beach soccer 89; NASSC role in 91, 92, 96; origins 89, 90; Pro Am Beach Soccer 93; Signorini and Beach Soccer Company 90–91; SITS model in 93–94, 96; Umbro and role in 90; US Open 92; US soccer history 84–89; US version of 83 Beach Socceroos: Asian Football Confederation 106–107; funding issues 107; matches and tournaments 107, 108, 109; Oceania Football Confederation 106; origins 105–106; world cup debut 105, 106 Beach Soccer USA Championships 94 Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) 1, 11, 13, 31, 44, 48, 49–50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 137, 138, 141 beach sports 30 BeSoCha see Beach Soccer Championships Bondi Beach 23, 24, 30 Bondi Rescue 24, 31 Brannagan, Paul 5 Brazil 2, 8, 10, 29, 42, 48, 50, 54, 89, 137 Bridgewater, Sue 5 Bryson, Bill 26 BSC see Beach Soccer Company BSWW see Beach Soccer Worldwide Byrne, Helen 9, 38 CAF Beach Soccer Championships 53 Calcio 39 Cantona, Eric 46, 47, 50, 106 Caribbean archipelago, the 26, 28 Cariocas 11, 42, 71, 136 CBSB see Confederação de Beach Soccer do Brasil China 39

146 Index CIFA see Cook Islands Football Association CISNOC see Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee Cleland, Jamie 5 climate refugees 24 Club de Regatas Vasco de Gama 68 CONCACAF see Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football Confederação de Beach Soccer do Brasil (CBSB) 70, 73 Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL – South America) 37, 49, 52, 74, 106 Confederation of African Football 49, 53 Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) 49, 52, 55, 95, 106 CONMEBOL see Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol Cook Islands Football Association (CIFA) 120 Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee (CISNOC) 122, 123 Cook Islands, the 122–123 Copacabana 1, 23, 29, 30, 70, 71, 136 Cuju 39 Culvin, Alex 6 De Haan, Donna 5 Donadio, Paulo 71 ‘ecological connections’ 29 England 40 English Football Association (FA), the 40 EPBSL see European Pro Beach Soccer League Episkyros (Phainindra) 39 European Pro Beach Soccer League (EPBSL) 47, 48, 52 FA see English Football Association Farkas, Thomas 9, 71 FBSSL see FIFA Beach Soccer S.L. FCF see Fédération Calédonienne de Football Federação de Beach Soccer do Estado do Rio de Janeiro 44 Fédération Calédonienne de Football (FCF) 121 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 2, 11, 13, 31, 40, 41, 47, 48, 102, 137, 138

Federation of Beach Sports of the State of Rio de Janeiro 44, 72 Fédération Tahitienne de Football (FTF) 108, 128 FFA see Fiji Football Association FFF see French Football Federation FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2, 3, 25, 31, 49, 56, 137, 142; AFC Beach Soccer Championships 53; bidding process for 51; BSWW role in 49–50; CAF Beach Soccer Championships 53; CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championships 52; CONMEBOL Beach Soccer Championships 52; diversity and geographical aspects of 51; European qualifiers 52–53; governing bodies 49; Intercontinental Cups 54; OFC Beach Nations Cup 53–54; teams and criteria 50; tournament in Russia 51–52; tournaments 50–51 FIFA Beach Soccer S.L. (FBSSL) 56 FIFA see Fédération Internationale de Football Association Fiji 120–121, 131 Fiji Football Association (FFA) 120–121 First Nations people 25 ‘folk football’ 39–40 Football and the Boundaries of History: Critical Studies in Soccer 7 Football Australia 105, 107 football history 38–41; ‘folk football’ 39–40; association football 40; English Football Association 40; FIFA and world cup matches 40–41; Scottish Football Museum 40; Summer Olympic Games 41 football history of Australia: as a ‘minority interest’ 104; Australian Football League 103; Beach Socceroos 105–109; football origins 104; National Rugby League 104; rules football 104; women’s football 105 football history of Brazil: clubs and societal change 68; football arrival 67; player evolution and commercialization 68; Seleção Nacional 67; women in 68–69; women’s team 69 football see soccer France 26, 27, 50

Index  147 ‘Franchise’ soccer model 83, 92, 93, 94, 95 French Football Federation (FFF) 121 FTF see Fédération Tahitienne de Football Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America (Elsey and Nadel) 7 Futebol de areia 5 Futebol de praia 5, 11, 42 goalkeeper see beach soccer goalkeeper Goasuballo 39 Graham Group 45 ‘greens’ 26 Guilanotti, Richard 5 Harpastum 39 Hay, Roy 104 Hughson, John 5 IBSA see International Beach Soccer Association ILSF see International Life Saving Federation India 139 International Beach Soccer Association (IBSA) 45 Intercontinental Beach Soccer World Cup 54, 55, 138 International Life Saving Federation (ILSF), the 30 International Olympic Committee (IOC) 41, 137 IOC see International Olympic Committee Ireland 9 Italy 26 Jamaica 26, 27 Japan 45 Jaws 28 Journal of Sport and Social Issues 29 Just Play 141 Kangaroo Lawrence 26 Kemari 39 kickabouts 42 KIFF see Kiribati Islands Football Federation Kiribati Islands Football Federation (KIFF) 118 Kirkwall Ba 40 Knoppers, Annalies 6

Koch Tavares 45, 46, 47, 48, 73 Kwai Island 1, 125, 126, 142 La Choule (Soule) 39 LAFA see Liga de Amadores de Futebol na Areia Lawrence, D.H 26 LeMay, Chris 93 Lifesaving World Championships 30 ‘Lifestyle sports’ 29, 32 Liga de Amadores de Foot-ball na Praia 71 Liga de Amadores de Futebol na Areia (LAFA) 71 long sandy beach 27 Lyra Filho, Eurico 72 Major Beach Soccer (MBS) 45, 89 Major League Soccer (MLS) 85–86 Malaita Football Association (MFA) 125 Maldives 26 Maya Bay 24 MBS see Major Beach Soccer Mellor, Peter 89 MFA see Malaita Football Association Miami Beach 45 Miller, Charles 67 MLS see Major League Soccer Monaco 47 Mundialito 48, 55, 138 NASL see North American Soccer League NASSC see North American Sand Soccer Championships National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) 85 National Rugby League (NRL) 104 National Soccer League (NSL) 106 Native Title claim 25 nature-based sport 29 Neom Beach Soccer Cup 37 New Caledonia 121 New Zealand 117 Noosa beach 25 North American Sand Soccer Championships (NASSC) 3, 45, 90, 91, 92, 139 North American Soccer League (NASL) 85 NPSL see National Professional Soccer League NRL see National Rugby League NSL see National Soccer League

148 Index Oceania 53, 117; beach soccer in 119–123; geography 117–118; OFC and FIFA 119; OFC and members 118, 119 Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) 12, 49, 106, 117, 118, 131, 139, 141 oceanic ‘blue spaces’ 29 Octagon Koch Tavares 48 OFC see Oceania Football Confederation 12 Olive, Rebecca 29 Olympic Games (Rio de Janeiro 2016) 30 Olympic Games (Sydney 2000) 30 PABS see Pro Am Beach Soccer Pacific Islands 12, 23, 24, 28 Paraguay 25 Parnell, Dan 5 ‘the passing game’ 40 Pasukuakohowog 39 ‘pay and play’ soccer model 92, 94, 141 PBS see Pro Beach Soccer Pelada 42 Perhentian Isands 28 Pielichaty, Hanya 5 Pok-A-Tok 39 Portugal 2, 48, 50, 55, 140 Pro Am Beach Soccer (PABS) 93, 139 Pro Beach Soccer (PBS) 47–48, 91 Radar Sports Club 72 Rede Globo 45, 46 RFU see Russian Football Union Rio de Janeiro 1, 11, 42, 67, 70 Rookwood, Joel 5 Rossi, Gino 94 Rowe, David 5 Russia 25, 51 Russian Football Union (RFU) 52 Samoa 123 sand soccer 5 Santa Monica Beach 24 Schirinzi, Angelo 121, 129, 141 Scottish Football Museum 40 Seleção Nacional 67 Seychelles 26 SIFF see Solomon Islands Football Federation Signorini, Giancarlo 44, 83, 136 SITS see Soccer in the Sands soccer 1, 4

Soccer in the Sands (SITS) 93–94, 139 soccer in the United States: clubs and matches 84; gender equity issues 88; initial growth 84; interest in soccer 84; leagues 85; Major League Soccer 85–86; men’s World Cup matches 86; women’s matches origins and development 87, 88; women’s World Cup matches 86; world cup host 85–86 Socceroos 103, 105–109 Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation: Kicking off a New Era (Hong and Mangan) 7 social beach soccer 29 social sports 30 Solomon Islands 53, 117 Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) 124 South Africa 53 Spain 26 Summer Olympic Games 41 The Sunbaker (Dupain) 31 Switzerland 25 Tahiti 2, 54, 117 TFA see Tonga Football Association Thailand 24 TIFA see Tuvalu Islands Football Association Tiki Toa 128–130 Tonga Football Association (TFA) 123 Tonga 123, 131 tourism 24, 26 Tuvalu Islands Football Association (TIFA) 118 Tuvalu 24 UEFA see Union des associations européennes de football Uele, Kilifi 123 Umbro 45, 89 Understanding Blue Spaces: Sport, Bodies, Wellbeing, and the Sea 29 Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA) 37, 49, 52, 55 United Soccer Association (USA) 85, 90, 94 United States (US) 3, 5, 11, 24, 26, 27, 45, 55, 136, 137 United States Soccer Federation (USSF) 83, 84, 87, 95

Index  149 USA see United Soccer Association US Open 92 US Sand Soccer Federation 45 US see United States US Women’s Beach Soccer National Team (USWBSNT) 55, 56 USSF see United States Soccer Federation USWBSNT see US Women’s Beach Soccer National Team Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) 121 Vanuatu 121, 131 Venice beach 23 VFF see Vanuatu Football Federation Victor Saraiva, João 51, 140 Viking Graham 45 Virgin Islands, the 27 Virginia Beach 1, 56 WBG see World Beach Games WEBSL see Women’s Euro Beach Soccer League Whalen, Dick 45, 90 Wheaton, Belinda 29 Widdop, Paul 5

Williams, Jean 6 Women Euro Beach Soccer Cup (2016) 55 Women, Football and Europe: Histories, Equity and Experiences 7 Women’s Football in Oceania (McGowan, Symons and Kanemasu) 7 Women’s Euro Beach Soccer League (WEBSL) 55–56 World Beach Soccer Championships 46, 48 Women beach soccer, history of 54–56, 57; ban on women 54; early tournaments 54, 55; United States 55; women’s Euro Beach Soccer Cup (2016) 55; Women’s Euro Beach Soccer League, 55–56 Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) 88 Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) 87 World Beach Games (WBG) 126 WPS see Women’s Professional Soccer WUSA see Women’s United Soccer Association