FIFA Amateur Football Manager Jorge Diaz and Beach Soccer Experts Francisco Petrasso, Marcelo Mendes, Francisco Franco, Ramon Raya, Gustavo Zloccowick, Talib Hilal Al Thanawi, Gilberto Sousa, Ramiro Amarelle, Naea Bennett are part of the workshop aimed to grow the sport worldwide.
The eleven experts, invited by the FIFA Global Football Development Division, were brought together for a three-day Beach Soccer Technical Experts workshop where they exchanged ideas, knowledge and best practices and combined the theory and practice of beach soccer. They included Marcelo Mendes, the experienced Brazilian who is now China PR beach soccer national team coach and is determined to raise the profile of the sport.
“Brazil is the birthplace of beach soccer so I think it’s very important for us to go abroad and show what we learned, and how the sport started,” he said. “I have to tell them to try it because I am 100% sure they will love it. It’s a spectacular sport, and…can bring many benefits for kids and youth.”
Marcelo Mendes
Ramiro Figueiras Amarelle, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2008™ adidas Golden Ball winner, said member associations needed to utilise all available expertise.
“The reality of each member association is completely different. We have to understand the world is different, so we have to be able to share the knowledge and the experience from all the parts of the world according to the requirements or the demands of each member association.
Ramiro Amarelle
A major takeaway from the meeting was the need to engage more people, offer the door to beach soccer for as many participants as possible, create the right structures, and the right competition formats and help the member associations to improve from the inside to then be able to prove to the outside, the value of their countries.
Just as it is doing with eleven-a-side football, FIFA wants to create more equal opportunities in beach soccer for its 211 member associations and help them increase participation and raise standards.
Image Credit: FIFA
