2024 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

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2024 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
كأس العالم لكرة القدم الشاطئية 2024

Tournament details
Host country	United Arab Emirates
City	Dubai
Dates	15–25 February 2024
Teams	16 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Brazil (6th title)
Runners-up	Italy
Third place	Iran
Fourth place	Belarus
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Goals scored	223 (6.97 per match)
Attendance	72,893 (2,278 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Ihar Bryshtel (12 goals)
Best player(s)	Josep Jr. Gentilin
Best goalkeeper	Tiago Bobô
Fair play award	Portugal
← 2021 2025 →

The 2024 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup was the 12th edition of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, the premier international beach soccer championship contested by men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. Overall, this was the 22nd edition of a world cup in beach soccer since the establishment of the Beach Soccer World Championships which ran from 1995 to 2004 but which was not governed by FIFA; all world cups took place annually until 2009 when it then became a biennial event.

This edition was originally set to be the 2023 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup; at the FIFA Beach Soccer Workshop in November 2017, it was announced that the World Cup would continue to be held biennially in odd-numbered years for the period 2018–2024.^[1]^[2] The bidding process for said edition was subsequently opened by FIFA in October 2021,^[3] concluding with the selection of the United Arab Emirates as the hosts in December 2022.^[4] The tournament was initially set to take place from 16 to 26 November 2023.^[5] However, in June 2023, the tournament was postponed until 15 to 25 February 2024,^[6] in order to provide more time to the organisers to prepare for the event.^[7] As a consequence, its original 2023 branding was dropped, and it subsequently became referred to as the 2024 edition.^[8] It took place in Dubai, the second city to host in multiple times,^[a] having also hosted the 2009 edition.^[4]

Russia won the previous edition^[b] and should have therefore been the defending champions. However, all Russian national teams are currently banned indefinitely from competing in FIFA competitions, due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.^[10] The tournament was won by Brazil, who claimed their sixth FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup title, beating Italy in the final who finished as runners-up for a third time.^[11]

Host selection

The original bidding schedule to determine the hosts was as follows:^[12]

6 October 2021 – FIFA opens the bidding process.
29 October 2021 – Deadline for national associations to declare interest of hosting to FIFA.
1 November 2021 – FIFA circulates documents detailing the application campaign and conditions of participation to the bidding associations to analyse.
26 November 2021 – Deadline for associations to reaffirm their bidding intentions by agreeing to the terms of the documents.
30 January 2022 – Deadline for nations to prepare and submit their complete bidding packages to be evaluated by FIFA.
31 March 2022 – Hosts announced by FIFA.

On 8 December 2021, FIFA revealed that five associations had affirmed their bidding intentions:^[13]

On 14 February 2022, FIFA announced that three of the five associations had submitted bids through to the final stage of the process,^[14] with Colombia and Thailand withdrawing.

Confirmation of the awarding of hosting rights was due to be announced at the FIFA Council meeting in Doha, Qatar on 31 March 2022.^[12] However, no announcement was made; it was then due to be awarded at its meeting in Auckland, New Zealand on 22 October 2022, but it was announced at the meeting that the decision had been deferred again until a subsequent Council meeting.^[15] At the next Council meeting on 16 December 2022, in Doha, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates was awarded the hosting rights to the 2023 tournament.^[16]

Qualification

A total of 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to the United Arab Emirates who qualified automatically as the host country, 15 other teams qualified from six separate continental competitions. The slot allocation was approved by the FIFA Council on 14 March 2023.^[17]

The process of qualification to the World Cup finals began in October 2022 and ended in August 2023.

Note: The appearance statistics below refer only to the FIFA era of world cups in beach soccer (since 2005); see this article for the inclusion of World Championships era stats (1995–2004).

Confederation	Qualified through	Team	App	Last	Best performance
AFC (Asia; 3 teams + hosts)	Host nation	United Arab Emirates	8th	2021	Group stage (seven times)
	2023 AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup	Iran	8th	2017	Third place (2017)
		Japan	12th	2021	Runners-up (2021)
		Oman	5th	2021	Group stage (2011, 2015, 2019, 2021)
CAF (Africa; 2 teams)	2022 Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations	Egypt	1st	n/a	Debut
CAF (Africa; 2 teams)	2022 Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations	Senegal	9th	2021	Fourth place (2021)
CONCACAF (Central, North America and Caribbean; 2 teams)	2023 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship	Mexico	7th	2019	Runners-up (2007)
CONCACAF (Central, North America and Caribbean; 2 teams)	2023 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship	United States	7th	2021	Group stage (six times)
CONMEBOL (South America; 3 teams)	2023 Copa América de Beach Soccer	Argentina	9th	2015	Quarter-finals (2005, 2006, 2008, 2013)
		Brazil	12th	2021	Champions (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2017)
		Colombia	1st	n/a	Debut
OFC (Oceania; 1 team)	2023 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup	Tahiti	7th	2021	Runners-up (2015, 2017)
UEFA (Europe; 4 teams)	2023 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification (UEFA)	Belarus	3rd	2021	Group stage (2019, 2021)
		Italy	9th	2019	Runners-up (2008, 2019)
		Portugal	11th	2021	Champions (2015, 2019)
		Spain^{[Note ESP]}	9th	2021	Runners-up (2013)

^
Note ESP: Ukraine originally qualified. However, on 27 September 2023, it was announced that the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine had refused to sanction the Ukrainian national team's participation in the tournament, in protest at the Belarus national team being allowed to compete, which it believes should be barred from entering due the country's role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[18] Ukraine previously qualified for, but also boycotted the 2021 World Cup due to its venue being in Russia.^[19]^[20] They were replaced by Spain, who statistically finished in fifth place in the UEFA qualifiers^[21] and therefore enter as lucky losers.

Venue

Location of the Design District Stadium in Dubai, where the tournament was held.

One venue was used in the city of Dubai. Despite being a coastal city with beaches, the stadium was located within the city's inland Design District; it was known by the name, Dubai Design District Stadium.^[22] It hosted all 32 matches of the competition, with a capacity to accommodate almost 3,500 spectators.^[23]^[c] The stadium was a temporary construction built purposely for the competition; its construction took just 25 days compared with typical lengths of 60 to 90 days.^[24]^[25]

Draw

The draw to split the 16 teams into four groups of four took place at 18:30 GST (UTC+4) on 6 October 2023 at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in Dubai.^[26] The drawing of lots was performed by Bakhit Saad and Christian Karembeu.^[27] It was conducted under the following procedure:^[28]

The teams were first divided into four pots of four based upon a ranking created by FIFA considering each team's performances at the World Cup over the past five editions (since 2013); the more recent the tournament, the more weight was given to those results. Bonus points were also awarded to the teams that won their confederation's championship during qualifying. Using this ranking, the best-performing teams were placed in Pot 1 (plus the hosts), the next best performers were placed in Pot 2 and so on. This resulted in the following composition pots:

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
United Arab Emirates (Hosts; assigned to A1) (10) Brazil (Highest-ranked; assigned to D1) (1) Tahiti (18) Japan (6)	Italy (9) Senegal (7) Portugal (2) Iran (8)	Spain (4) Oman (17) United States (13) Belarus (22)	Argentina (14) Mexico (21) Colombia (11) Egypt (24)

The numbers in parentheses show the BSWW World Ranking of the teams at the time of the draw, out of 102 nations.^[29] The rankings are displayed for context only; it had no influence on the draw.

The draw started with Pot 1. As the hosts, the United Arab Emirates were automatically assigned to position A1. The highest-ranked team, Brazil, was automatically assigned to position D1. The other teams were then drawn – the first out was placed into Group B and the second, C. The teams from Pot 2 were then drawn – the first out was placed into Group A, second into B and so on. The same was repeated for Pots 3 and 4. The exact positions in the groups the teams were allocated to was determined by the drawing of lots from an auxiliary pot. Teams from the same confederation could not be drawn into the same group.

The draw resulted in the following groups:^[30]

Group A
Pos	Team
A1	United Arab Emirates
A2	Egypt
A3	United States
A4	Italy

Group B
Pos	Team
B1	Spain
B2	Iran
B3	Tahiti
B4	Argentina

Group C
Pos	Team
C1	Senegal
C2	Belarus
C3	Colombia
C4	Japan

Group D
Pos	Team
D1	Brazil
D2	Oman
D3	Portugal
D4	Mexico

Match officials

From the International Referees List, FIFA chose 24 officials from 24 different countries to adjudicate matches at the World Cup, who were revealed on 14 December 2023.^[31]^[32]

At least one referee represented each of the six confederations of FIFA: four from the AFC, three from CAF, five from CONMEBOL, three from CONCACAF, one from the OFC, and eight from UEFA.

Confederation	Referee	Age	Qualified^[33]
AFC	Abdulaziz Abdullah	48	2009
	Turki Al Salehi	47	2009
	Yuichi Hatano	42	2015
	Ibrahim Alreesi	39	2017
CAF	Louis Siave	35	2016
	Jelili Ogunmuyiwa	44	2008
	Said Hachim	44	2010
CONCACAF	Juan Angeles	44	2012
	Gumercindo Batista	44	2012
	Gonzalo Carballo	41	2014
CONMEBOL	Jorge Gómez	37	2016
	Lucas Estevão	38	2017
	Aecio Fernández	40	2018
	Mickie Palomino	42	2012
	Mariano Romo	42	2013

Confederation	Referee	Age	Qualified^[33]
OFC	Aurélien Planchais-Godefroy	42	2018
UEFA
	Eduards Borisevics	41	2008
	Vladimir Tashkov	36	2016
	Francisco Bumedien	32	2018
	Sérgio Soares	44	2014
	Vitalij Gomolko	34	2015
	Ingilab Mammadov	40	2012
	Saverio Bottalico	42	2017
	Łukasz Ostrowski	38	2012

Squads

Each team had to name a preliminary squad of between 12 and 18 players. From the preliminary squad, the team had to name a final squad of 12 players (two of whom must have been goalkeepers) by the FIFA deadline. Players in the final squad could be replaced by a player from the preliminary squad due to "serious" injury or illness up to 24 hours prior to kickoff of the team's first match.^[34]

The final squad lists were revealed by FIFA on 7 February 2024.^[35]

Group stage

The match schedule was published on the 6 October, following the draw.^[22]

In the group stage, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, extra time shall be played (one period of three minutes) and followed, if necessary, by kicks from the penalty mark to determine the winner. Each team earns three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time, one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out, and no points for a defeat. The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.^[34]

Tiebreakers

The rankings of teams in each group are determined as follows:^[34]

points obtained in all group matches;
goal difference in all group matches;
number of goals scored in all group matches;

If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:

points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
goal difference in the group matches between the teams concerned;
number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
fair play points in all group matches (only one deduction could be applied to a player in a single match):
- Yellow card: −1 points;
- Indirect red card (second yellow card): −3 points;
- Direct red card: −4 points;
- Yellow card and direct red card: −5 points;
drawing of lots by the FIFA Organising Committee.

All times are local, GST (UTC+4).

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	W+	WP	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Italy	3	2	0	0	1	9	3	+6	6	Knockout stage
2	United Arab Emirates (H)	3	1	1	1	0	5	3	+2	6	Knockout stage
3	Egypt	3	0	1	0	2	8	12	−4	2
4	United States	3	0	0	0	3	7	11	−4	0

Source: FIFA
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers
(H) Host

15 February 2024

15:30

United States	1–3	Italy
Rezende 11'	Report	Josep Jr. 2' Zurlo 12' Giordani 20'

Dubai Design District Stadium

Attendance: 711

Referee: Mariano Romo (Argentina)
Man of the match: Josep Jr. (Italy)^[36]

15 February 2024