(Posted 20th December 2022)
The Seychelles Football Federation has been selected to host the 2025 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, becoming the first African country to ever do so.
The announcement was made in Doha by the FIFA Council Meeting coinciding with the final of the FIFA World Cup which ended last weekend.
Notably will the 2023 edition of the biannual tournament be held in the United Arab Emirates.
For Seychelles the hosting of the tournament will be a huge ‘shot in the arm‘ to promote the country as a premier Indian Ocean island destination, and although many of the islands’ beaches have been consistently voted into the top ten of the worlds’ greatest beaches, the tournament will give them added global visibility.
Regular commentators from the islands’ tourism fraternity welcomed the news, one of them writing to ATCNews on condition of anonymity for not being an official spokesperson: ‘We are over the moon about the news to host such a prestigious global soccer tournament and will assist the football federation with the planning, preparation, logistics and marketing of the event‘.
Seychelles has previously hosted beach soccer championships for COSAFA, gaining experience in managing the logistics for such an event.
