As the next edition of the Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations looms in Mozambique the Togo Football Federation (FTF) has decided to develop the sporting discipline in the West African country.
A country known for its thousands of kilometers of beachline with fine sand, the Togolese football authorities are embarking on a new mission of organising beach soccer in the country for the first time.
As part of the move an exhibition tournament was held last week that brought together many curious people to the Lome Beach with four clubs participating in a bid to introduce the sports to fans in the nation.
Under the good auspices of the FTF, the public was invited to witness the matches and huge numbers of spectators attended the event to the satisfaction of the organisers.
“We got the public’s attention with this event. There were excited fans who were there to watch this discipline which is still largely unknown in this part of the world. It was important to launch beach soccer and get the public to buy into it. We attended high-level exhibition matches and we believe that we have definitely launched beach soccer in Togo,” said Hervé Tété Agbodan, Secretary General of the FTF.
“We are very satisfied with this exhibition. It was a first and we can only congratulate ourselves. Everyone saw through the four teams that took part in the tournament that there is talent.”
The FTF says their next ambition is to play regular competition to enable the country to form a Beach Soccer national team to be able to play in the qualifiers for the next edition of the AFCON.
“The ambition is to succeed in setting up a national team which will be able to participate in the qualifiers for the 2024 Beach Soccer AFCON,” added Hervé Piza, one of the Advisors to the President of the FTF in charge of Beach Soccer and Futsal. .
A few days before the exhibition match, the Togolese Football Federation organized training on the basic rules of the discipline for various stakeholders in the game.
Clubs, referees and journalists were given the necessary training to enlighten them about the rules of the game to help start the growth of the discipline in Togo.
Several activities are planned in the country in coming weeks to continue the push to make Beach Soccer a national sport in the West African country.