FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

The first Beach Soccer World Cup was held in Brazil, in 1995, organised by the precursors to the modern-day founders of the standardised rules, Beach Soccer Worldwide, held under the title Beach Soccer World Championship. Eight teams were selected to take part, without going through a qualification process. However Brazil, the hosts, dominated and easily won the cup without losing a game. The tournament was successful and BSWW announced that the competition would take place every year.

By 1997, more teams had already stated their interest in participating and therefore BSWW extended their selection to 10 teams for 1998. Brazil continued to dominate, despite this change. Immediately, BSWW extended to 12 teams for 1999, spreading their selection across five continents, introducing more new teams to the tournament. However, with all these changes it still took until the 2001 World Cup for Brazil to lose the title after winning the competition six years on the run since the establishment. It was Portugal who won the tournament, with Brazil finishing in a disappointing fourth place.

Brazil national beach soccer team: 14 times winners

With this change of champions, more countries thought there was a chance for themselves to win the tournament and this sparked more interest worldwide. Not surprisingly, Brazil reclaimed their title in 2002, when BSWW reduced the number of contestants back to eight. The last Beach Soccer World Championship to be organised purely by BSWW was in 2004 when twelve teams played, seven from Europe.

In 2005, FIFA paired up with BSWW to co-organise the World Cup, although FIFA seem to have the most control. They kept the tradition of holding the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro and continued to allow 12 teams to participate, following on from the 2004 competition. It was Eric Cantona's France that won the competition, after beating Portugal on penalties in the final. The tournament was deemed a major success and therefore FIFA took advantage. For the 2006 competition and beyond, FIFA decided to standardise the participants to 16 countries. It was then that the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Qualifiers were also established, that would take place throughout the year. Again this decision was a successful one and more countries became interested in a now standard FIFA competition.

A scene from the 2007 event in Brazil

By the end of the 2007 World Cup, the tournament had become very popular throughout the world, with the FIFA board taking over the competition, driving more countries to recognize beach soccer as a major sport. Since the World Cup had become a success worldwide, FIFA decided to have a change of venue. It was voted, to extend the sport's popularity, the 2008 World Cup would take place in Marseille, France, and the 2009 World Cup would take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These tournaments would be the first to take place outside Brazil. The 2008 competition was once again a major success, despite being held in a different country. This was the first time that Brazil would have to qualify for the tournament, since they weren't the hosts. However Brazil won the qualifiers and the World Cup in July. The 2009 World Cup in Dubai was an even bigger success, as the second competition outside Brazil and the Beach Soccer World Cup's 15th birthday, Brazil continued their dominance.

Just before the final of the 2009 World Cup, FIFA announced that a new format would see the World Cup now take place every two years, starting from the 2011 World Cup. FIFA justified the decision by stating that they wanted Confederations to have more time to develop the sport, therefore allowing a year in between World Cups for Confederations to organise their own local tournaments. This was a mutual decision between Confederations and FIFA.[1] In March 2010 FIFA confirmed that the 2011 World Cup would take place in Italy and the 2013 World Cup would take place in Tahiti.[2]

In 2013, FIFA extended the FIFA Champions Badge to the winners of the competition, where it was first won by Russia.[3]

From 1995 until 2005 there was no standard qualification system for nations to go through to earn a place at the World Cup finals. The process in which teams gained entry into the finals was inconsistent from one year to the next throughout the confederations, often down to a simple invite to participate in the finals from BSWW, or potentially qualification by reaching the latter stages in a premier regional tournament with no prior ties with the World Cup, or perhaps by performing well in the previous World Cup.

During this period, nations from Africa, Asia and sometimes North America were the usual recipients of invitations, due to a lack of regional tournaments for BSWW to determine who was best in said region and worthy to play in the finals. Typically, European nations qualified by doing well in the Euro Beach Soccer League and South American nations in the Americas' League, sometimes jointly with North American nations who also qualified along with them in such circumstances. It was still common for other 'wild-card' European and South American nations to receive invites despite not performing well continentally. However, during the early years of the championships, invitation was the common form of eligibility for all nations.

Following the success of the inaugural FIFA tournament in 2005, the number of teams at the finals was increased by FIFA to a record 16 and so the governing body along with BSWW met with individual confederations to set up a standard qualifying process for each world cup, by establishing regional championships for each continent. The winners of these championships would be crowned the best team in the region, promoting regional competitiveness, and most importantly act as a consistent method of qualification to the World Cup for the best teams of each confederation. This would also help increase the sport's awareness across all corners of the globe and make sure all confederations were represented at the finals at every following World Cup, unlike in the past.

Besides Europe, who continued to use the Euro Beach Soccer League as the method of World Cup qualification until 2008, all other confederations hosted their first championships in 2006 in view of the finals later that year.

The allocation of World Cup spots and hence how many teams qualify from their regional championship to the World Cup was decided by FIFA in 2006 as follows:

^ As part of the Euro Beach Soccer League

The host country's confederation loses one qualification spot. I.e. since the 2015 World Cup was held in Portugal, they automatically qualified taking up one of the five European spots. Therefore, in the 2015 UEFA qualifiers, only four teams qualified from the championships to join the hosts making the total of five European nations.

As shown in the table, attendance of nations in qualification tournaments generally continues to rise year on year; the total global number of participants has nearly doubled since 2006.

Despite being the premier tournament in most regions, since the primary objective is to qualify to the World Cup, on a rare occasion teams have not participated due to qualifying to the finals automatically as hosts such as Brazil deferring from the 2007 CONMBEBOL Beach Soccer Championship and Tahiti in the 2013 OFC Beach Soccer Championship.

Brazil are by far the most successful nation, with 14 titles. However their hold on the title has become less apparent since the tournament came under the control of FIFA and moved outside of Rio. They are followed by Portugal (2001, 2015, and 2019) with three wins, Russia (2011 and 2013) with two, and France with one title (2005). France won the first FIFA-sanctioned tournament in 2005. Brazil and Portugal are the only teams to win the world championship before and after FIFA started sanctioning the sport.

Overall 18 of the 46 nations who have ever competed have made a top four finish. Brazil remained the only nation to finish in the final four every championship until 2015 when they finished in fifth place. Of those 18 nations, only 7 have made a top four finish before and after FIFA started sanctioning the World Cup.

Nation	Titles	Runners-up	Third place	Fourth place
Brazil	14 (1995*, 1996*, 1997*, 1998*, 1999*, 2000*, 2002*, 2003*, 2004*, 2006*, 2007*, 2008, 2009, 2017)	1 (2011)	2 (2005*, 2013)	1 (2001*)
Portugal	3 (2001, 2015*, 2019)	3 (1999, 2002, 2005)	5 (2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2011)	1 (2006)
Russia	2 (2011, 2013)	—	2 (2015, 2019)	—
France	1 (2005)	2 (1998, 2001)	1 (2006)	2 (2003, 2007)
Uruguay	—	3 (1996, 1997, 2006)	4 (1998, 1999, 2002, 2007)	1 (2009)
Spain	—	3 (2003, 2004, 2013)	1 (2000)	1 (2008)
Italy	—	2 (2008, 2019)	1 (1996)	4 (1995, 2004, 2015, 2017)
Tahiti	—	2 (2015, 2017)	—	1 (2013*)
United States	—	1 (1995)	1 (1997)	1 (1996)
Peru	—	1 (2000)	—	2 (1998, 1999)
Switzerland	—	1 (2009)	—	—
Mexico	—	1 (2007)	—	—
Argentina	—	—	1 (2001)	1 (1997)
England	—	—	1 (1995)	—
Iran	—	—	1 (2017)	—
Japan	—	—	—	3 (2000, 2005, 2019)
El Salvador	—	—	—	1 (2011)
Thailand	—	—	—	1 (2002)

Key

Bold Years = FIFA tournaments

* = Hosts

This table shows the overall statistics of all 20 World Cups that have occurred since 1995, combining the results of both the original Beach Soccer World Championships era and the current FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup era.

Pos	Team	Apps	Pld	W	W+	WP	L	GF	GA	Dif	Pts	Av. Pts
1	Brazil	20	105	95	0	3	7	780	289	+491	288	2.74
2	Portugal	17	84	52	4	4	24	451	286	+165	168	2
3	Uruguay	16	67	28	3	4	32	267	261	+6	94	1.4
4	Spain	14	56	29	1	0	26	219	205	+14	89	1.59
5	Italy	18	68	25	2	4	37	278	309	–31	79	1.16
6	Russia	8	38	24	2	0	12	176	126	+50	76	2
7	France	12	50	23	0	4	23	212	221	–9	73	1.46
8	Argentina	16	57	23	0	1	33	167	211	–44	70	1.23
9	United States	14	47	18	0	0	29	158	215	–57	54	1.15
10	Japan	14	50	15	1	2	32	172	241	–69	49	0.98
11	Tahiti	5	24	12	1	2	9	100	101	–1	40	1.67
12	Switzerland	6	24	11	1	1	11	115	116	–1	36	1.5
13	Senegal	7	25	10	1	2	12	126	101	+25	34	1.36
14	Peru	5	21	11	0	0	9	81	78	+3	33	1.57
15	Iran	7	26	6	1	1	18	95	115	–20	21	0.81
16	Nigeria	6	20	5	1	2	12	88	119	–31	19	0.95
17	Mexico	6	22	5	0	2	15	53	90	–37	17	0.77
18	Paraguay	4	13	5	0	0	8	59	56	+3	15	1.15
19	El Salvador	4	16	4	1	0	11	49	81	–32	14	0.88
20	United Arab Emirates	6	18	4	0	1	13	57	71	–14	13	0.72
21	Solomon Islands	5	15	4	0	0	11	55	105	–50	12	0.8
22	Canada	3	10	3	0	1	6	34	63	–29	10	1
23	Ukraine	3	9	3	0	0	6	32	28	+4	9	1
24	England	1	5	2	0	0	3	20	31	–11	6	1.2
25	Oman	3	9	2	0	0	7	27	42	–15	6	0.67
26	Bahrain	2	7	1	0	1	5	21	38	–17	4	0.57
27	Thailand	2	7	1	0	1	5	16	34	–18	4	0.57
28	Belarus	1	3	1	0	0	2	10	13	–3	3	1
29	Denmark	1	3	1	0	0	2	10	16	–6	3	1
30	Bahamas	1	3	1	0	0	2	7	14	–7	3	1
31	Chile	1	4	1	0	0	3	14	22	–8	3	0.75
32	Ivory Coast	2	6	1	0	0	5	26	37	–11	3	0.5
33	Venezuela	3	8	1	0	0	7	22	33	–11	3	0.38
34	Poland	2	6	1	0	0	5	24	42	–18	3	0.5
35	Germany	4	9	1	0	0	8	22	56	–34	3	0.33
36	Cameroon	2	6	0	0	1	5	12	35	–23	1	0.17
37	Netherlands	2	6	0	0	1	5	13	42	–29	1	0.17
38	Turkey	1	2	0	0	0	2	1	5	–4	0	0
39	Madagascar	1	3	0	0	0	3	7	12	–5	0	0
40	Australia	1	2	0	0	0	2	2	8	–6	0	0
41	Malaysia	1	2	0	0	0	2	4	13	–9	0	0
42	Panama	1	3	0	0	0	3	4	14	–10	0	0
43	Belgium	1	2	0	0	0	2	5	18	–13	0	0
44	Ecuador	1	3	0	0	0	3	6	22	–16	0	0
45	Costa Rica	2	6	0	0	0	6	8	31	–23	0	0
46	South Africa	2	4	0	0	0	4	6	29	–23	0	0

This table shows the overall statistics of all 10 World Cups that have occurred since 2005, of the current FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup era only.

Pos	Team	Apps	Pld	W	W+	WP	L	GF	GA	Dif	Pts	Av. Pts
1	Brazil	10	55	47	0	3	5	358	166	+192	144	2.62
2	Portugal	9	49	29	3	4	13	274	167	+107	97	1.98
3	Russia	7	35	23	2	0	10	169	116	+53	73	2.09
4	Spain	7	29	15	0	0	14	110	97	+13	45	1.55
5	Italy	8	32	13	2	3	14	150	126	+24	42	1.31
6	Uruguay	6	28	12	2	1	13	112	106	+6	41	1.46
7	Tahiti	5	24	12	1	2	9	100	101	–1	40	1.67
8	Argentina	8	27	13	0	1	13	85	89	–4	40	1.48
9	France	4	21	12	0	3	6	97	67	+30	39	1.86
10	Japan	10	36	12	1	1	22	132	163	–31	39	1.08
11	Senegal	7	25	10	1	2	12	126	101	+25	34	1.36
12	Switzerland	5	21	10	1	1	9	106	99	+7	33	1.57
13	Iran	7	26	6	1	1	18	95	115	–20	21	0.81
14	Nigeria	6	20	5	1	2	12	88	119	–31	19	0.95
15	Mexico	6	22	5	0	2	15	53	90	–37	17	0.77
16	Paraguay	4	13	5	0	0	8	59	56	+3	15	1.15
17	El Salvador	4	16	4	1	0	11	49	81	–32	14	0.88
18	United Arab Emirates	6	18	4	0	1	13	57	71	–14	13	0.72
19	Solomon Islands	5	15	4	0	0	11	55	105	–50	12	0.8
20	Ukraine	3	9	3	0	0	6	32	28	+4	9	1
21	United States	5	14	3	0	0	11	46	77	–31	9	0.64
22	Oman	3	9	2	0	0	7	27	42	–15	6	0.67
23	Canada	1	4	1	0	1	2	12	26	–14	4	1
24	Bahrain	2	7	1	0	1	5	21	38	–17	4	0.57
25	Belarus	1	3	1	0	0	2	10	13	–3	3	1
26	Bahamas	1	3	1	0	0	2	7	14	–7	3	1
27	Ivory Coast	2	6	1	0	0	5	26	37	–11	3	0.5
28	Poland	2	6	1	0	0	5	24	42	–18	3	0.5
29	Netherlands	1	3	0	0	1	2	6	12	–6	1	0.33
30	Cameroon	2	6	0	0	1	5	12	35	–23	1	0.17
31	Madagascar	1	3	0	0	0	3	7	12	–5	0	0
32	Australia	1	2	0	0	0	2	2	8	–6	0	0
33	Venezuela	1	3	0	0	0	3	8	17	–9	0	0
34	Panama	1	3	0	0	0	3	4	14	–10	0	0
35	Thailand	1	2	0	0	0	2	3	13	–10	0	0
36	South Africa	1	2	0	0	0	2	4	15	–11	0	0
37	Ecuador	1	3	0	0	0	3	6	22	–16	0	0
38	Costa Rica	2	6	0	0	0	6	8	31	–23	0	0

This table shows the overall statistics of all 10 World Cups that occurred between 1995 and 2004, of the now defunct Beach Soccer World Championships era only.

Pos	Team	Apps	Pld	W	W+	WP	L	GF	GA	Dif	Pts	Av. Pts
1	Brazil	10	50	48	0	0	2	422	123	+299	144	2.88
2	Portugal	8	35	23	1	0	11	177	119	+58	71	2.03
3	Uruguay	10	39	16	1	3	19	155	155	0	53	1.36
4	United States	9	33	15	0	0	18	112	138	–26	45	1.36
5	Spain	7	27	14	1	0	12	109	108	+1	44	1.63
6	Italy	10	36	12	0	1	23	128	183	–55	37	1.03
7	France	8	29	11	0	1	17	115	154	–39	34	1.17
8	Peru	5	21	11	0	0	9	81	78	+3	33	1.57
9	Argentina	8	30	10	0	0	20	82	122	–40	30	1
10	Japan	4	14	3	0	1	10	40	78	–38	10	0.71
11	England	1	5	2	0	0	3	20	31	–11	6	1.2
12	Canada	2	6	2	0	0	4	22	37	–15	6	1
13	Thailand	1	5	1	0	1	3	13	21	–8	4	0.8
14	Venezuela	2	5	1	0	0	4	14	16	–2	3	0.6
15	Russia	1	3	1	0	0	2	7	10	–3	3	1
16	Denmark	1	3	1	0	0	2	10	16	–6	3	1
17	Chile	1	4	1	0	0	3	14	22	–8	3	0.75
18	Switzerland	1	3	1	0	0	2	9	17	–8	3	1
19	Germany	4	9	1	0	0	8	22	56	–34	3	0.33
20	Turkey	1	2	0	0	0	2	1	5	–4	0	0
21	Malaysia	1	2	0	0	0	2	4	13	–9	0	0
22	South Africa	1	2	0	0	0	2	2	14	–12	0	0
23	Belgium	1	2	0	0	0	2	5	18	–13	0	0
24	Netherlands	1	3	0	0	0	3	7	30	–23	0	0

The adidas Golden Ball award is awarded to the player who plays the most outstanding football during the tournament. It is selected by the media poll.

World Cup	Golden Ball	Silver Ball	Bronze Ball	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Madjer	Neném	Amarelle	[5]
2006 Brazil	Madjer	Benjamin	Bruno	[6]
2007 Brazil	Buru	Madjer	Morgan Plata	[7]
2008 France	Amarelle	Benjamin	Belchior	[8]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Dejan Stankovic	Madjer	Benjamin	[9]
2011 Italy	Ilya Leonov	André	Frank Velasquez	[10]
2013 Tahiti	Bruno Xavier	Ozu Moreira	Raimana Li Fung Kuee	[11]
2015 Portugal	Heimanu Taiarui	Alan	Madjer	[12]
2017 Bahamas	Mohammad Ahmadzadeh	Mauricinho	Datinha	[13]
2019 Paraguay	Ozu Moreira	Jordan Santos	Bê Martins	[14]

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

World Cup	Golden Shoe	Goals	Silver Shoe	Goals	Bronze Shoe	Goals	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Madjer	12	Neném	9	Anthony Mendy	8	[5]
2006 Brazil	Madjer	21	Benjamin	12	Bruno	10	[6]
2007 Brazil	Buru	10	Morgan Plata	9	Bruno	8	[7]
2008 France	Madjer	13	Amarelle	11	Belchior	10	[8]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Dejan Stankovic	16	Madjer	11	Buru	10	[9]
2011 Italy	André	14	Madjer	12	Frank Velásquez	9	[10]
2013 Tahiti	Dmitry Shishin	11	Bruno Xavier	10	Agustín Ruiz	7	[11]
2015 Portugal	Pedro Morán	8	Madjer	8	Noël Ott	8	[12]
2017 Bahamas	Gabriele Gori	17	Rodrigo	9	Mohammad Ahmadzadeh	9	[13]
2019 Paraguay	Gabriele Gori	16	Emmanuele Zurlo	10	Fedor Zemskov	10	[14]

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

World Cup	Golden Glove	Ref(s)
2008 France	Roberto Valeiro	[8]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Mão	[9]
2011 Italy	Andrey Bukhlitskiy	[10]
2013 Tahiti	Dona	[11]
2015 Portugal	Jonathan Torohia	[12]
2017 Bahamas	Peyman Hosseini	[13]
2019 Paraguay	Elinton Andrade	[14]

FIFA Fair Play Award is given to the team who has the best fair play record during the tournament with the criteria set by FIFA Fair Play Committee.

Tournament	FIFA Fair Play Award	Ref(s)
2005 Brazil	Japan	[5]
2006 Brazil	France	[6]
2007 Brazil	Brazil	[7]
2008 France	Russia	[8]
2009 United Arab Emirates	Japan  Russia	[9]
2011 Italy	Nigeria	[10]
2013 Tahiti	Russia	[11]
2015 Portugal	Brazil	[12]
2017 Bahamas	Brazil	[13]
2019 Paraguay	Senegal	[14]