London, England —Hayes Wheelless, creator of the Red Bull Street Style, said that the birth of the world’s premier freestyle football tournament was to bring life and excitement to the sport so as to give the freestyle community a head-to-head format comprising three minutes, two players and one ball.

The two players will face off in a one-minute and 30-second stint with one ball. The players are barred from using their hands at anytime and only can juggle the ball with the use of their upper and lower body.

“The competition was created out of a need for the sport. Freestyle existed; it was very popular on Youtube and on other social media networks from far back as 2005. There was world championships even in the 1980s, but there was no head-to-head format.

“The competitions before were just about juggling events with judges, and so we saw a need from Red Bull to create head-to-head competitions to give a new platform to the sport. The sport had a lot of talent and a lot of different styles, and so what we wanted to do in Red Bull was to create an overall project that would really recognise and identify the overall best freestyler,” Wheelless told the

Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Wheelless said that since the competition started in 2007, it has grown tremendously over the years, and with this year’s tournament kicking off today at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, United Kingdom, he is looking forward to an even more exciting and competitive tournament.

“We started the event in 2007 and at that time it was called the Red Bull Reaccion, and we had representatives from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and 14 other countries in Latin America.

“After 2007 edition we had great reception and success with the project, and then we changed it to a global event and changed the name to Red Bull Street Style in 2008 where we held the tournament in Brazil.

“After Brazil we decided to continue the project every two years, and in 2010 we went to South Africa and that was so successful and we decided to go immediately into 2011 in Italy, and after that we went to Japan in 2012.

“After Japan we decided to hit the brakes a little bit and basically went back to the every two-year rule and went back to Brazil in 2014, and now here we are in London in 2016 for the World Finals and we are very anxious and looking forward to see some good action and hopefully the Caribbean will represent well,” Wheelless said.

With only eight females contesting this year’s edition, Wheelless said that they are hoping to increase the number of female competitors in future tournaments.

“The female scene seemed so small, but that is just the nature of the game so far but it is growing. We have the eight best right now and we could easily put eight more as the talent has increased tremendously, but we took the decision after the last competition that we will continue with the eight and now we are already having the conversation that we should put more females into the project because the level has got to really high quality,” he ended.

— Ruddy Allen