Filip Eyckmans
The Bossaball concept was created between 2003 and 2005 by Filip Eyckmans, a Belgian living in Spain for more than 10 years.
As a youngster, Eyckmans was a tennis player in the national team of Belgium, spending his remaining free time assisting live soccer matches and DJ-ing on private parties.
In the early nineties, he became manager of several music bands such as dEUS and Vive la Fete. On one of his multiple trips with dEUS in Brazil, he gets overwhelmed by the Afro-Brazilian phenomenon capoeira on a suburb square of Recife. He absorbs the fantastic late afternoon vibe on Brazil's beaches where soccer, volley, dance and music smoothly fuse together.
In the late nineties, when beach volley is booming and the benji-trampolines are all over the shopping malls, Eyckmans starts to stir up his cocktail of music and sports. He is looking for a fusion of different body techniques; a sport with more rally than just serves and blocks; a concept in which disciplined gymnastics combine their flexibility, agility and coordination with the elegant ball touch of Zidane…
Bossaball is born; the ultimate mix of soccer, volley and gymnastics topped with an exotic, groovy sauce.
Wilco Nijland
Wilco Nijland, a former first league volleyball player and educated as a physical education teacher and master in sports management, was working at that time as a production manager at the Dutch volleyball Federation. He was in charge of bossaball and in addition he created the very successful youth concept UVX.
In 2008 he decides to join Bossaball Sports SL to work on the further international development and to lead bossaball into new and captivating areas.
