Following the rescheduling of the blind football calendar until the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, the IBSA Football Committee has now initiated the process to secure hosts for its regional championships next year.

The committee is keen to have hosts for all its events in place well in advance of the tournaments to give teams time to prepare.

The regional tournaments, originally scheduled for 2021, have been postponed for a year until 2022 due to the unprecedented global pandemic.

The committee invites IBSA member organisations in good standing to indicate interest in hosting one or more of the regional championships in writing and by email before Sunday 28th February. The organisation will then have until Thursday 15th April to submit a full application to host on the IBSA sanction application form. If they so wish, countries may already submit a full bid along with their expression of interest.

The committee is seeking hosts to stage regional championships, either together or separately, in all three disciplines: men’s blind football, partially sighted football and women’s blind football. While the committee expects countries to apply to host just one discipline, bids for joint championships involving a combination of the disciplines are welcomed.

Expressions of interest and full bids should be addressed to IBSA Executive Director Henk van Aller ([email protected]) and IBSA Football Committee Chair Ulrich Pfisterer ([email protected]).

The events for which the committee is requesting expressions of interest in all three disciplines are:

• 2022 African Championships
• 2022 American Championships
• 2022 Asian Championships
• 2022 Central American Championships
• 2022 European Championships Division 1

All of these tournaments will be part of the qualification process for the next IBSA Blind Football World Championships in the three disciplines, already confirmed to take place in August 2023 in Birmingham, United Kingdom, as part of the IBSA World Games.

The European Championships Division 2 have already been confirmed. A qualifier for the 2022 Division 1 championships, they will be held in Bucharest, Romania, in October this year.

For more information on the process or requirements please contact [email protected].