BFA: “Our Goal Is To Develop Beach Soccer”
The Bermuda Football Association announced that BFA 1st Vice President and Chairman of Player Development Mark Wade joined BFA Executive member Antoine Augustus at a recent FIFA Beach Soccer seminar in El Salvador, and said that their “goal is to develop Beach Soccer as part of our national program.”
The BFA said, “The four-day seminar included a case study from the Bahamas Football Association, detailing their beach soccer journey.
“The Bahamas Football Association will be hosting the Beach Soccer World Cup in 2017. In addition, there were presentations from El Salvador, Mexico, and The United States of America on the state of beach soccer in their respective countries.
“Breakout groups met to analyze the viability of establishing a domestic league in each of the represented countries. Bermuda’s group was lead by mark Wade, who presented their findings.
“FIFA Development and Technical Officers also gave a presentation on the available programs to assist in growing Beach Soccer throughout the world, and, in particular, the CONCACAF region.”
Antoine Augustus commented, “With the beautiful location and beaches we have in Bermuda we are well suited to Beach Soccer. Our goal is to develop Beach Soccer as part of our national program.
“Hopefully, in three to five years, we can be part of a CONCACAF Beach Soccer regional tournament.”
Whilst in El Salvador the BFA delegates were able to witness the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final of the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship. The delegates learned about the logistics involved in beach soccer and a beach soccer stadium.
The BFA executive members will be meeting this week to discuss the development of Beach Soccer in Bermuda.
Great news!
Nice concept, but we are 20 years behind.
Makes good sense to pursue this avenue for sport.
Which beaches would have the appropriate dimensions to have full-out beach soccer contests? Horseshoe is an obvious option, where else?
FINALLY! THIS IS AWESOME!
I’m in favour of any sort of football development, and I agree it makes sense given our wonderful beaches.
But let’s be honest, it’s a poor substitute for the version played on grass.
Good idea.
This should be done in conjunction with the BTA’s idea to promote sports during spring break, rather than the old boozy promotions. Get some teams from North America, South America, the Caribbean etc. for tournaments. Win/win/win.
Bigger teams coming in would be great too obviously. It’s a great game, spectator friendly and promotes our beaches.
But, we need to build this ground level up. Much like sailing. Many very famous sailors came here many years ago for the various races and stayed in Bermudian’s homes etc. Get ‘em when they are young and enthusiastic, provide them with a great experience and they will never forget and will return.
Awful idea.
Why is it awful :S
We’ve already had international beach volleyball and beach tennis tournaments, so it’s fair to consider beach football as something to develop and see what becomes of it.
Placing fixed goal posts at a few beaches is a good start so we can just take a ball down.
Your goal should be to improve our game on grass ….stop the world travel and let us know when the senior team will play again prior to their games versus Guatemala….
Todd, Boyles, Bascombe, Morton and other coaches must take the game back from suits that have but one interest, i.e., self interest…
Coaches – It is Past time that you and the players controlled your own destiny. It isn’t that difficult and there are those that will get behind you, however you need to assert yourselves and put away your cowardly lion costumes.
I have no clue how you can, year after year, season after season, see your hard work be usurped by do nothing suits that have no interest in the game – just what the game ( and your weekly efforts ) can do for themn.
It amazes me that those that make the least contributions ( suits ) receive the lion share of the gains. It’s your fault coaches and the players and it’s time you stepped up for the good of the game.
Seems a beach multi sport stadium would have good traction with soccer, tennis, volleyball etc. all essentially using the same surface. This type of thing would not actually be at the beach as it needs to be level and a considerable size. Fun events could be run at horseshoe but thats about it to be honest.
Possible locations for a four court set up:
St. Georges – build that economy
National Stadium – next to the field hockey to cricket pavilion (although would need to control the sand in blowing conditions from the pool)
Rangers – to be honest the violence and trouble associated with this ground make a good argument to not run traditional football here but give the club a viable alternative that would most likely triple their profits. the natural amphitheatre layout is also a benefit.
White hill Field
With several sports involved and the attractiveness to sponsors with a stadium style venue, i think this is a pretty feasible venture.
They can’t run the existing leagues properly but you want to also give beach soccer a go …… sounds like leaving one problem to go create another
So says the expert!
Come on Dick, dude doesn’t have to be an expert to state the obvious.
This is a terrible idea.
Best & Goater for president and general sec. of BFA….
What a waste of taxpayers money!