Beach soccer, also known as sand football or beasal, is a sport similar to association football that emphasizes speed, agility and accuracy in the players’ attempts to score. It is played on a compact field that is much smaller than a standard football field, which allows the players to score from anywhere on the sand.
A large beach soccer festival is coming to Fremantle this weekend, with around 160 teams expected to compete across three competitions. The women’s and mixed competitions will kick off at noon on Saturday, followed by the men’s on Sunday afternoon.
The tournament will see the beach filled with thousands of people as the best beach soccer teams from around the world compete for their titles, and Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said it was a chance to watch some awesome athletes in action on the beach.
On Tuesday night, the city council unanimously approved a consent agenda as presented that included a sand soccer tournament in August for the first time. However, the mayor suggested revisiting the town’s fee structure for special events such as this one. He said the fee was established based on costs of the existing beach sand soccer tournament and the fees that the town had previously charged for other special events, but it was now a good time to re-evaluate the structure.
During the discussion, Councilman John Gehrig suggested that the town should not change the fee structure for this event as the promoter had already filed an application based on the current fees. That would be a bait-and-switch practice, he said, and it might not be fair to re-evaluate the fees if the town had already paid them for the tournament.
Mayor Mike Meehan argued that the proposed sand soccer tournament was held at the end of the fiscal year, and that it might be a good time to re-evaluate how the town charges for this type of event. He said that he had recently visited Virginia Beach, where they have their own town-operated sand soccer tournament, and thought it was worth looking at the current fee structure.
As a result, the city council voted 6-0 to include the sand soccer tournament on the consent agenda and to remand the matter back to staff for further review of the fee structure. Councilman Matt James agreed, saying it was a good idea to look at the current fee structure.
The sand soccer festival will feature two matches of world class men’s and women’s soccer all day and night with performances from Grammy Award-winning Latin superstar Rauw Alejandro, Chance the Rapper and Adassa “the princess of reggaeton” who starred in Disney’s “Encanto.”
The festival also features a Colombian classic, a match between crosstown rival America de Cali and current Colombian champion Deportivo Cali. In addition, a superstar music headliner will perform on Sunday.