This article is part of an introduction to the policies and activities of each Prefectural Football Association divided into 12 categories: ‘Seniors’, ‘Class 1’, ‘Class 2’, ‘Class 3’, ‘Class 4’, ‘Kids’, ‘Women’, ‘Futsal’, ‘Beach Soccer’, ‘Referees Committee’, ‘Facilities Committee (Environmental Maintenance)’ and ‘Technical Committee’. We hope you read this article through and become familiar with the various activities held across the country.

This is the first article of four, in which we introduce ‘Beach Soccer’ activities.

*This article has been published in ‘REGIONAL NEWS‘ in the December issue of JFA news.

Activities of ‘Beach Soccer’ (Ibaraki Football Association)

ICHIGE Kazuo, Chairman of Futsal Committee of Ibaraki Football Association
‘To develop Beach Soccer’

The Kanto round of the ‘Japan Beach Soccer Championship’, which started in 2006, is held in Ajigaurakaigan in Hitachinaka-city until 2012 and in Hiraikaigan in Kashima-city from 2013 in Ibaraki. ‘WHIZKID’ from Kashima-city participates in the championship every year to play against strong teams in Kanto.
Kashima-city is now working on getting the city ready to host national championships. This year two pitches for beach soccer, some space for warm-up, and two pitches for beach volley were opened during the year. These are open to the public for free during summer. From 2012, the ‘Antlers Cup Kashima Beach Soccer Championship’ was hosted by Kashima-city, and the city expanded the scale of the championship this year, in which 18 teams played games in two days. The ‘Kanto Beach Soccer League’ has also started this year, which went very smoothly in Hiraikaigan, one of the sites of the league, thanks to the cooperation of the city. We also had a beach soccer clinic hosted by Marcelo Mendes, the head coach of the Beach Soccer Japan National Team, in Hiraikaigan in July. Players aiming to play for the national team, eagerly learned at the clinic to improve themselves.

Ibaraki Football Association will keep trying to host more fulfilling championships through strengthening the collaboration with Kashima-city. We would also like to host local tournaments more, not to mention prefectural championships, in order to provide more opportunities to play to as many players as possible, which will improve support for beach soccer.

The quality of the sand is one of the issues, which we can work on. We need to purchase better quality sand, so that we can provide national championship-level pitches. It is also essential to appeal widely and acquire more players and supporters of beach soccer. As we are short of referees, the futsal referees concurrently work as beach soccer referees. We would like to develop more referees, including football officials.
Beach soccer is easy to start, if you have a sand pitch. I hope many teams and players will enjoy beach soccer at the excellent brand-new facility in Kashima-city. As we have many coasts in our prefecture, I expect more pitches for beach soccer will be ready and beach soccer will be more popular just like football and futsal.