Footvolley history
The first game of footvolley was played about 50 years ago at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (although not everybody agrees on this). They say footvolley was created by Octavio de Moraes in 1965. They played football on a beach volleyball court because they were not allowed to play football near the beach. In the 1970s other Brazilian cities like Recife, Salvador, Brasília and many more hosted footvolley games. Some Brazilian football players who still play are Romario, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo.
In the 1980s footvolley arrived in Europe via Portugal. A Portuguese immigrant Mr. Julião Neto returned from Brazil and introduced the sport to the local youth. In the next years several football players started competing and footvolley was spread all over Europe.
We can safely say that footvolley is born from football and samba. Since 2000 the sport gained a lot of popularity in Europe and Asia. A good example is the famous Pepsi advertising campaign of 2009 with Lampard, Kaka, Henri, Torres and Messi.
From then on European teams participated in renowned tournaments all over Europe and the world. Currently there are 16 European nations that have footvolley associations.
