Footgolf European Championships 2024

Hi, my name is Sami and I will be travelling as part of an Irish Squad of 12 of the best players from around the country to compete in the European Footgolf Championships.

When:

December 6th - 14th

Where:

Cullinan Links Golf Club & Kaya Palazzo Golf Club, Antalya, Turkey .

Expenses;

The accomodation & green fees for the week in this resort is at a discounted rate of €1,100 per player.

Flights are working out around €300.

Team kit €225.

As Footgolf is not recognised by any sports bodies yet, it is self funded, which means sponsors are such an important part of the game and a massive help to an aspiring athlete like myself.

This will be my third time travelling to represent Ireland this year with previous trips in May to the 4Nations competition in Devon, England. As well as a trip in June to Bratislava, Slovakia where myself & 4 others carried out the journey with the goal of qualifying Ireland for the upcoming European Championship, which we did so successfully.

A bit more about the competition;

In total 16 countries have qualified & it will be 4 groups of 4 teams for the group stages, with top 2 countries from each group going through to the quarter finals. We have been drawn into a group with hosts Turkey , Netherlands & England .

If we can qualify from this group we will be the first ever Irish Squad to qualify from the group stages of the Footgolf Euros.

Ireland will be competing only in the Men’s category as we could not field a team in either the Senior (Over 45s) or Women’s categories.

One of the biggest Turkish TV Channels will be in attendance to capture some of the action as well as live streams from the various Facebook pages of the associations involved.

Follow FIFG Facebook for live streams & updates on the action as it unfolds.

More about my Footgolf journey;

This will be my third international cap for Ireland with my debut coming just in June of last year when we took the long journey across the Atlantic to compete in the Footgolf World Cup in Orlando, Florida. This was an amazing experience that really solidified my love for this game & gave me all of the motivation I needed to take FootGolf more seriously as a sport. The World Cup was held over 12 days & what ultimately separated the best players from the rest of the field was their resilience, fitness, strength & conditioning.

I did get to meet an ex-professional footballer when we faced & beat England 4-3 in the group stages. Alan Smith previously played with Manchester United as well as Leeds & Newcastle United in his professional career but that doesn’t translate into Footgolf as much as most people would think.

The second cap came in May of this year when we had a much shorter trip to the Ashbury Manor Golf Resort in Devon, England to compete in the 4Nations tournament.

Ireland headed into this tournament as the reigning champions having won the first ever edition of the 4Nations which was hosted by Ireland in Pococke Golf Centre in Kilkenny, one of the best courses in the country for Footgolf. There were some slight alterations to the course to make it fitting for an international tournament such as this & you can see how that unfolded in the YouTube video that I will attach below. 4Nations Final IRE v SCO

All donations large or small are greatly appreciated & any funds in excess of the target amount will be put towards future Footgolf tournaments like the Sharjah Open in January of next year which boasts a guaranteed prize-pool of $30K.

I am actively in search of a main sponsor for next year's Footgolf season and am open to meet with any potential businesses who are interested in becoming involved in this growing sport.

2025 EUROPEAN & WORLDWIDE OPEN COMPETITIONS

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