Footvolley - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Footvolley is a sport which combines aspects of beach volleyball

Beach volleyball

Beach volleyball, or sand volleyball, is an Olympic team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net.Like volleyball, the object of the game is to send the ball over the net in order to ground it on the opponent’s court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent....

and football (soccer)

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

History

Footvolley was created in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, by Octavio de Moraes, in 1965 in Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach as a means for football players to be able to touch the ball without violating the formal football ban at the time. Players would bring a football; but opt for the volleyball courts when the police would come ask for their ball. The game of footvolley - first call 'pevoley' literally meaning "footvolley" was discarded for "futevolei". Footvolley started in Rio de Janeiro; however cities like Recife, Salvador, Brasilia, Goiania, Santos, and Florianopolis have players who have been playing footvolley since the 1970s.

Teams of footvolley had five a side initially. Due to the skill level of the then footvolley athletes (nearly all were professional football players); the ball would rarely drop. Thus, the players began lowering the number of players on each side, eventually settling on 2 versus 2, which is still in use today.

In recent years, professional football players have taken up footvolley in both promotional events and celebrity matches. Some notable Brazilian footballers who have played (or still play) footvolley are: Romário

Romário

Romário de Souza Faria , better known simply as Romário , is a former footballer who played striker,manager and current politician where is currently running for a mayor like position in his hometown...

, Edmundo

Edmundo

Edmundo Alves de Souza Neto , better known simply as Edmundo, is a retired Brazilian footballer.Edmundo played for Brazil at the 1998 World Cup. For Palmeiras, he won the Campeonato Brasileiro in the beginning of the Nineties. For Vasco da Gama he won 1997's Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, scoring...

, Ronaldo

Ronaldo

Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima , commonly known as Ronaldo, is a retired Brazilian footballer who last played for Corinthians. Ronaldo is widely considered to be the greatest 'pure' striker in the history of the modern game, and by some accounts, in the history of football. Ronaldo was one of the...

, Ronaldinho Gaúcho

Ronaldinho

Ronaldo de Assis Moreira , commonly known as Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho Gaúcho, is a Brazilian footballer who plays for Flamengo and the Brazilian national team as an attacking midfielder or forward. He is a two-time winner of the FIFA World Player of the Year, awarded to the best player over the year...

, Júnior, and Edinho

Edino Nazareth Filho

Edinho, real name Edino Nazareth Filho, was a football player from Brazil. He played central defender with Fluminense Football Club, Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense and with the Brazilian national team...

(1982 & 1986 National Team).

Rules

Footvolley combines field rules that are based on those of beach volleyball

Beach volleyball

with ball-touch rules taken from Association football. Essentially footvolley is beach volleyball except no hands and a football replaces the volleyball.

International Rules

Points are awarded if the ball hits the ground in the opponents' court, if the opponents commit a fault, or if they fail to return the ball. Scoring is done using the rally point system (NEW volleyball rules). Match scoring is usually up to the event organizer's discretion. Generally speaking matches are one set to 18 points; or best of three sets to 15 points (with third set to 11 points). The court is 29.5 feet x 59 ft (old beach volleyball). The height of the net varies based on the competition. The Official International Rule for the net height set is 2.2 meters or 7 feet 2 inches for the men's competition. For the women's competition, the height of the net should be set at 2 meters or 6 feet 6 inches.

Pro Footvolley Tour Rules

The rules in the United States professional tour (Pro Footvolley Tour) are designed to make the matches faster and more aggressive. Some of the notable differences are: lower net height (2.05 Meters); no 'net' foul; 2-pointers are awarded up to 3-times maximum per set for all shots scored with the foot when one foot goes above the head when striking the ball and the other foot is off the ground (bikes, matrix kicks, etc.); and smaller court size 57 feet by 28.5 feet.

International growth

Since the sport's inception in Brazil, footvolley has spread and gained popularity internationally, including Europe, the United States, and Asia. The very first international footvolley event held outside of Brazil was sponsored by the United States Footvolley Association in March 2003. This relatively small event is what kick-started the international grown of the sport.

Major events have been held at many beach cities in countries around the world, including Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, Holland, Aruba, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

, etc.

Paraguay

is the first world champion of futvolley and the paraguayan Jesus is the best player in the World Championship.

Brazil

In the history of footvolley, Brasilia (the capital of Brazil) has the number one players of today. This city has played a big role on bringing the best players in history. Since the 90's there have been great players like Gabriel, Xeleleu, Jansen de Oliveira, Ramiro, Betola, Edinho, Hugão, Luisinho, who are till today in activity and besides playing beautifully professionally; they also taught and raised on the field children that are today the biggest name of players in the history of Footvolley: Belo, Marcelinho, Mario, Cafe, Diego, Lana (on the female and mix footvolley) and others... Those won almost all of the worldwide Footvolley championships around the globe at this date.

United States

The Pro Footvolley Tour was launched in 2008. This new professional tour featured the best players in the US, and international guests at each event. The first Pro Footvolley Tour event was held in South Florida on Hollywood Beach

Hollywood, Florida

-Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...

in March, 2008. Brazilian football player Romario

Romário

with his Rio de Janeiro based partner Joao Luis won the tournament beating a Deerfield Beach based squad of Paulo Ricardo and Alex Reis. This event drew 5,000 spectators, and was broadcast live on Univision

Univision

Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...

. In 2011, the tour was held in Miami's South Beach

South Beach

South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...

.

The Pro Footvolley Tour has attracted sponsors such as Bud Light, TAM Airlines, and Crowne Plaza

Crowne Plaza

Crowne Plaza is a chain of full service, upscale hotels catering to business travelers and to the meetings and conventions market. It forms part of the InterContinental Hotels Group family of brands, which include InterContinental and Holiday Inn and operates in 52 countries, usually located in...

; as well as partners such as Comcast SportsNet

Comcast SportsNet

Comcast SportsNet is a group of regional sports networks in the United States primarily owned by the Comcast cable television company....

and others.

National governing body

US Footvolley, based in Miami Beach, is the sport's national governing body (NGB.) It is chartered to grow the sport within the United States, sanction tournaments and equipment manufacturers; and represent the US in international competitions.

To be eligible for competition in official US Footvolley competitions, the player needs to meet certain requirements, including having been an active member of US Footvolley during the current year and a resident of the United States, although exceptions can be provided for celebrity layers because footvolley is still a relatively new sport and celebrities help attention to the sport.
The US squad is determined by individual rank at the annual US Footvolley National Championships.

United Kingdom

In April 2006 the England Team accompanied football legends John Barnes

John Barnes (footballer)

John Charles Bryan Barnes MBE is an English football manager and former player.During his playing career, Barnes had successful periods at Watford and Liverpool in the 1980s and 1990s, winning the First Division twice, the FA Cup twice, and playing for England 79 times...

and Niall Quinn

Niall Quinn

Niall John Quinn honorary MBE is a former Irish international footballer, and the ex-chairman of Sunderland AFC. He still works at the club as an overseas manager. He is also heavily involved in the management side of horse racing...

to a tournament in Pattaya, Thailand organized by the Thai Footvolley Federation.

In 2007 the 2 events held were the Muller Rice Open in Croyde, and the Lamisil Once Footvolley Open in Brighton. Dirceu & Luigui were champions at both events, maintaining their unbeaten record and David & Gary, the England Footvolley Team No. 1 pair won the Shield Competition.

Israel

Footvolley was first played in Israel in 2003 when a few beach boys amongst which are, Yossi Golan, Amir Zohar, Oshri Cohen, Shalom Michaelshvili and more, learnt the exciting game from two Brazilian soccer players who played for Israeli teams. It was in 2007 that Corona

Corona

A corona is a type of plasma "atmosphere" of the Sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but also observable in a coronagraph...

in Israel got involved in footvolley, establishing the first footvolley ordinary league already in 2008. It was also the organizers of the league that invented the Hebrew name pronounced "Fuccivolley"(פוצ'יוולי) to be used exclusively for the game played in their league and other events.

Corona FootVolley League, so far the one and only ordinary footvolley league in the world, is played since 2008 every summer starting in May/June until the final four in September/October with 14 teams and 13 league rounds in the Premium league and 12 teams playing 10 rounds in the Masters league.

In 2009 Corona FootVolley European Tour was established inviting teams from Europe to play in Israel. In 2011 Corona FootVolley European Tour was upgraded to Corona FootVolley World Tour inviting teams from all over the world to play. For the very first time in its 4000 years of known history, FootVolley is about to be played in Jerusalem! The holy city for Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, Christians and Muslims, the city nested in the hurt of the Judean Mountains

Judean Mountains

The Judaean Mountains, ;, also Judaean Hills and Hebron Hills is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,000 m.-Geography:...

between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

will host the “Corona FootVolley World Cup – Jerusalem 2011” tournament. A beach sand playground (The Corona FootVolley Arena) will be prepared especially for the tournament right in front of the Old City

Old City

-Neighborhoods :*Old City , Azerbaijan*Old City *Old City *Old City , Pakistan*Old City Multan, Pakistan*Old City , Tennessee, United States*Old City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States...

walls, next to the famous Tower of David

Tower of David

The Tower of David is an ancient citadel located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.Built to strengthen a strategically weak point in the Old City's defenses, the citadel that stands today was constructed during the 2nd century BC and subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by,...

.

Corona FootVolley Winter Cup, a one day tournament, is also played in Israel every February since 2010.

External links

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