The National Paralympic Committee of Algeria and the IBSA Goalball Subcommittee are pleased to announce the 2016 IBSA Goalball Africa Regional Championships will begin in Algeirs on 26 February and will run through 4 March.

 

In it's 7th iteration, this is the final regional Goalball qualification tournament to be held prior to the 2016 Paralympic Games.  At stake are the final men's and women's qualification slots for the Rio Games. 

 

While Goalball is played in many African countries, a regional tournament system similar to other regions is only now developing.  Due to economic challenges and difficulties traveling between countries, African teams have been able to compete against one another on very few occasions.

 

Despite those challenges, the good news is that this will be the largest Goalball tournament of this type to ever be held in Africa.  NPC Algeria has worked diligently with African federation to increase the level of participation to a higher level than past years.

 

The following teams are expected to compete:

 

Women's teams:  Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoie, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Tunisia.

 

Men's teams:  Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia

 

The numbre of women's teams is unprecentented for this region and sends a strong signal that Africa is moving forward to expand all aspects of Goalball in the Africa region.

 

In conjunction with the championship, IBSA Goalball is organizing workshops geared to foster additional development in Africa, and will be holding workshops during on topics such as coaching, refereeing and officiating, and tournament organization.

 

Accoring to IBSA Goalball Kari Rasanen, "This is a good opportunituy to educate a large group of people from different countries while they gather together at a large competition.  IBSA Goalball has a very advanced development path for referees and officials.  Now we have enlarged our offering to include coaches and also people responsible for organizing tournaments.  In combination with these measures, we believe we will provide some skills that will make it easier for many countries to develop the skills of players and coaches and also increase the number of competition opportunities."

 

Teams will be arriving in Algiers over the next few days with competition slated to begin on 29 February.

 

PLease check back fo rhte tournament schedule and tournament results.