Beach Footballl: AFVD Presidium is welcoming IFAF decision
First World Championships 2017 in Costa Rica
The AFVD Presdium is welcoming the decision of IFAF to establish the new football sport Beach Football.
With the introduction of this new football sport IFAF potentially found the key for the Olympic Games, as well as for the further worldwide expansion of the football sport. American Football, as a full contact sport, so far has not been played on a high competitive level in enough countries to be eligible for German government funding and conducting a tournament creates high effort and expenses for both, the organizers and the participating teams. For conducting an Olympic football tournament, at least four mens- and four womens-teams are necessary, which includes 360 athletes and another 120 caregivers. Given the current dimension of the Olympic Games this clearly exceeds the limit of a promising application.
Even the last IFAF world championship reached the limits of feasibility. Organizers in the key countries of American Football have not been available and tournaments have been hosted by football developing countries without competitive national teams. Participating in these tournaments was not affordable even for the largest national associations. Moreover, full contact American Football was dominated by a small number of national teams. About eight nations qualified for championships regularly and only three nations have been world champions (at senior and junior stage) so far. All these factors have prevented the international distribution of the sport.
With the introduction of Beach Football each country of the world, irrespective of the size, face the possibility to send a team to the world championship. Therefore, it seems to be possible that 40 nations participate, while none of the nations has a historical advantage and the costs for potential hosts are manageable. For organizing an Olympic tournament with 8 womens- and 8 mens-teams only 200 quota places are necessary. These teams can compete for medals in three different disciplines: mixed, men and women.
IFAF is following the example of the Rugby world association that successfully created the new discipline Rugby Seven for participating at the Olympic Games.
A first success consists of the admission to the Asian Beach Games 2014 by the National Olympic Committee of Asia. The AFVD will establish the new sport and will participate at the Beach Football World Championship planned for 2017 in Costa Rica.