What is Footvolley?

Footvolley is a great sport from Brazil. It is basically beach volleyball played with football rules, so 2 against 2 over a net, with 3 touches per team, and no 2 touches for the same player. Because it is a beach game it is normally played on sand, but it can be practised on grass, on a hard court indoors, practically anwhere!

See videos of footvolley action in our gallery!

Where does it come from?

Footvolley comes from Brazil. It originated in the 1960s on the beaches of Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, when a few footballers played a game on the beach volleyball courts. It has become much more popular in the last 10 years in Brazil, and now it is played in other parts of the country. Legendary Brazilian players like Romario and Ronaldinho grew up playing footvolley, and certainly honed their incredible skills on the footvolley court. If you want to catch Romario in action, you can still find him playing on his favourite beach, Barra de Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro.

Ronaldinho

Romario

The game is now being played in more and more countries around the world: France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Argentina, Uruguay, USA and Thailand, amongst others.

In Holland, football stars who play include Arjen Robben, Philip Cocu, Roy Mackaay and Ronald & Frank DeBoer.

Check out ex France & Manchester Utd star Laurent Blanc in action, and an interview with French legend Jean-Pierre Papin.

Who can play it?

Footvolley is a non-contact sport, so anyone can play it safely: boys and girls, all age groups. See where you can play here!

When and where can it be played?

Footvolley is traditionally a beach game, played on sand. But in the UK only a few people are lucky enough to live near a beach, and there are not many beach volleyball courts anywhere that we can play on. So we can practice indoors, for example in sports and community halls, and in the summer can play outside on grass or anywhere else, until more beach volleyball courts can be built in our schools and parks. See where you can play here!

What benefits would I get from playing footvolley?

Firstly, footvolley encourages physical fitness and improves overall health of players. The game improves player's physical and mental reactions and reflexes. Secondly it improves technical skil and handling of the ball, as well as ambi-dexterity and spatial awareness with regard to control of the ball. As a result of these two points, footvolley will significantly improve the overall performance of any footballer.

Why should we play it in the UK?

1) It's a great sport!

Footvolley can be played by anyone, girls or boys or mixed teams. Played in parks or in public places, anyone can watch and join in. It has no established following yet here, but with a potential player base of not only all our schoolboys, but also our schoolgirls too (and of course all adults are willing to try) it could attract quite a significant player base. Also it is very inclusive and much more accessible than other niche sports such as kitesurfing, wakeboarding snowboarding etc. Footvolley is a great spectator sport: fast action and acrobatic, and will certainly be attractive to television and other media.

2) Improve standard of football in UK

One of the reasons that Brazil has been so successful in international football throughout the history of competitions is their overall superiority of their player pool, not only due to its size, but also due to its skill. Their skill is not better than ours through any improvement on our teaching standards at school or professional level: it is due to the nature of the informal game often played in the streets. As the quality of the surface (as well as the lack of shoes) doesn't always lend itself to a passing game, the game is more often played in the air. If you can control a football in the air, controlling it on the ground is much easier! Therefore the average team of 15 year old Brazilians will have more individual skill and spatial awareness than the average 15 year old UK kids, and will therefore beat them.

Why now?

Niche sports have seen an incredible surge in popularity in the last few years, and footvolley will certainly be one of them. The potential for the sport is tremendous in terms of international participation, and we are already seeing the establishment of Footvolley Associations in the USA, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and other countries, and there is talk already of establishing a European governing body. The UK cannot miss out on this, and must begin now so that it can be a part of this movement from the beginning.

Secondly, with London winning the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games the nation has a chance to involve more youngsters in sport than ever before. Beach Volleyball is an Olympic Sport which will be hosted at Horseguards Parade in London, and we are hoping that footvolley will be a demonstration sport at the Games.

We aim to work closely with the Ministry of Sport and all other official bodies to help introduce footvolley into schools, universities, and all around the United Kingdom. It's a great game, which is very accessible, and anyone can play. Most boys around the U.K. can already play very well even if they don't know it yet! Girls will enjoy it too however, and as footvolley is a non-contact sport, there is no reason why boys and girls or men and women can't play together.