Beach Soccer Histories

<p><em>Beach Soccer Histories</em> is the first text to consider the sport as a historical social and cultural phenomenon to define its traditions and present leading research on the development and significance of football played on sand. </p><p>Following a period of expansive rapid growth beach soccer is an internationally governed professional sport which has come a long way from its origins in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s. The sand-based variant is distinguished from football by a range of factors including the dramatic impact of the playing surface. Yet the game has undergone very little academic scrutiny. This research adopts and adapts qualitative methods related to oral history and football studies including extensive archival research semi-structured interviews and textual and thematic analyses. As it looks beneath the game’s contemporary reach it considers origins organisations – including FIFA’s influence – and the beach cultures that underpin its sporting and historical development. This the most comprehensive exploration of beach soccer and a century of its existence. </p><p>Beach Soccer Histories examines the game’s historical development critical moments and movements in its progress successes and contentions and its contemporary state of play with a view to deepening and advancing our understanding of the game. </p>