Seychelles Launches 2025 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

FIFA Beach Soccer 2025
May 4, 2024

The road to the 2025 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Seychelles has officially begun with the launch of the event one year-ahead, which took place on Friday 3 May 2024.

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The 2025 tournament will take place from May 1 to May 11, with 16 nations set to compete, including the hosts, Seychelles, who will be participating in a first ever global FIFA football tournament.

The event to launch the World Cup, according to a report from Seychelles News Agency (SNA), took place at the Kempinski Resort in the south of the main island of Mahe, where guests included the President of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan, who is also the patron for of the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF), the SFF’s president, Elvis Chetty, and the director of competitions at FIFA (the football world governing body), Jaime Yarza.

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
Elvis Chetty (Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) President), Jaime Yarza (Director of competitions at FIFA) and President of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan

During his address at the event, Chetty explained the importance of the tournament that will take place in Seychelles, stating that this sporting event is a beacon of opportunity for Seychelles.

“Hosting an event of this magnitude brings along a significant impact, promising to usher in an era of unparalleled growth and development for our islands and football community at large,” said Chetty, highlighting the expected surge in tourism from the games. He also noted the various infrastructure developments that this tournament will also bring.

In fact, a new beach soccer stadium is expected to be constructed in Roche Caiman, near the existing venue, with a 4,000-capacity arena to be built, which will then be dismantled and put into other areas in Seychelles as two smaller stadiums, that will be used to continue the development of beach soccer in Seychelles.

On his part, Yarza joked that when FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in Seychelles, they received more volunteers than ever to join the tournament. “Attending a world cup is a very special moment and we want to honour the people that love this sport, by bringing them the best teams, the best organisation and we are convinced that Seychelles can offer that,” Yarza added. 

With Seychelles set to host the event almost exactly one year from now, the preparations for the games have already begun, where during the ceremony, the official logo was unveiled, along with the winner’s trophy, and tournament theme song, which is called “Kot mon ne” in Seychellois Creole or “Where is was born”, in English, sang by popular local artist known as Mercenary.

Meanwhile, President Ramkalawan said that the people of Seychelles need to understand that this tournament is much bigger than anything Seychelles has hosted before.

“We are now overtaking the Indian Ocean or a zone in Africa, now we are going global,” he said, adding that “with Seychelles’ size, we will never be able to host a normal football world cup, but as small as we are, we can host the Beach Soccer World Cup.”

He added that he hopes that the Seychelles team can do well, and that the tournament will be the catalyst that re-invigorates our local 11-a-side football and brings us back to the heights of previous years.

First held in 2005, the 2025 edition of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup will be the 13th instalment of a tournament that has been held every two years since 2009. Following outstanding events held in the AFC (Dubai in 2009 and 2024), Concacaf (the Bahamas in 2017), CONMEBOL (Paraguay in 2019), the OFC (Tahiti in 2013) and UEFA (Italy in 2011, Portugal in 2015 and Russia in 2021) regions and after the 2025 edition, the tournament will have been hosted by every confederation in the space of just 12 years.

“This will be the first-ever FIFA tournament to be staged in the Seychelles and the first FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Africa, making it a historic event for our organisation,” said FIFA Director of Tournaments Jaime Yarza. “It also shows that we’re making football truly global by taking our tournaments to fascinating and varied locations.

“The Seychelles will provide a stunning backdrop for this competition, which promises to leave a valuable legacy for the islands. We hope that everyone in the Seychelles and around the world has the opportunity to watch a fantastic beach soccer tournament played in a tropical paradise.”

Beach soccer is a highly entertaining sport and, although it demands special skills, it has much in common with football played on regular pitches. It is a simple game that is contested on sand and unites the world, and averaging more goals per match than any other format of the beautiful game, it always promises a fun and action-packed day out for fans of all ages.

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