By Madjer, Beach Soccer International star
The blossoming of the national championships, a truly satisfactory reality for beach soccer, is mainly the consequence of the expanding force of the sport. Beach Soccer needs to grow, to follow different paths that will foster its global and multi-directional widening.
The interest and will to develop National Championships have appeared naturally in many different countries, driven by their national governing bodies. It just popped up. Wisely, they quickly understood that a local championship was the best way to improve internally within the discipline, what would help these countries and National Teams to grow internationally.
The equation is simple: More top-level matches will create more and better players, and these players will end up teaming up in a more powerful National side…
This formula has already brought to the global stage clear examples of countries that made a strong bet on Beach Soccer, and are today considered the most important stakeholders of the sport all across the globe.
For instance, the National Championship of Russia, who went for a format in which the best international players joined Russian-based squads quickly turned into one of the most competitive and demanding National leagues. And we don’t need to remember how is the Russian Beach Soccer Team doing, right?
Another successful example is the UAE National League, whose quality is growing exponentially. With a similar format, in which each team can incorporate three foreign players, the competition is providing a truly competitive environment which is helping the UAE players grow within the international scale.
The strong commitment by the Dubai Sports Council, moreover, goes beyond one single competition, as the Emirati beach soccer calendar includes, besides the UAE National Beach Soccer League, the UAE Beach Soccer President’s Cup and the UAE Beach Soccer Supercup, without of course forgetting the internationally renowned Intercontinental Cup in Dubai. These tournaments, necessarily, foster the birth and growth of new beach soccer players, at the time they make UAE a more and more recognizable beach soccer ecosystem all over the world.
And what about Italy with the Serie A Beach Soccer, a pioneer National League which has been taking place for years, under the FIGC-LND, with 16 teams from across the country and seven different stages scattered from north to south. A truly prestigious championship, complemented with the Coppa and the Supercoppa, that states Italy as one of the all-time Beach Soccer venues… Or Switzerland, who have set up a unique concept of National Championship, an exemplary competition with the best players in the world, involving the whole country and fostering children and women competition as well…
Every season, new National associations understand that the National Championship is a necessary step into the growth of Beach, and, at the same time, the only understandable response to the interest for beach soccer generated within their borders. Last season, with 20 teams taking part in the successful first edition of the Euro Winners Cup, this tendency was made even clearer, and all symptoms point that this year this competition will even be wider.
National Championships are all about future, about believing in the sport and having it pushing on and on. They are only about making the decision of growing or not, with the experience of many countries that have already shown the way… Isn’t it a really easy decision?
