DARE. BACK THEM. WRITE THE STORY.
Why you should sponsor Belgium’s national Roller Inline Hockey teams — today.
Talent has never been enough. Pioneers, on the other hand…
Remember. In the early 2000s, Belgian field hockey was a confidential sport. A handful of clubs, a few thousand licensed players, not a single major international medal in decades. Nobody believed in it. Nobody, except a few visionaries who dared to back a long-term project.
Fifteen years later: the Red Lions are Olympic champions in Tokyo 2021, World champions 2018, European champions 2019. The Red Panthers shine on the world stage. A brand-new national stadium just opened in Wavre. Immoweb is on the jerseys. The World Cup comes to Belgium this August.
It wasn’t written. It was a decision. The decision of sponsors who said “yes” when everyone else was saying “not yet”.
The Belgian Cats: same story, more recent.
Belgian women’s basketball? Fifteen years ago, it was languishing. The Cats missed the EuroBaskets of 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015. Then a generation emerged: Meesseman, Allemand, Vanloo, Mestdagh.
In 2017, Orange took a bet and became the main sponsor of the Belgian Lions, the Belgian Cats and the Pro Basketball League — right in the middle of their comeback. The Cats won European bronze. Then a 4th place at Paris 2024. Then European champions 2023. Then, unbelievably: European champions 2025. Two consecutive titles.
Without Orange in 2017, without the National Lottery, without the pioneers who invested before it paid off, this golden generation would never have had the means to match its ambitions.
They had the talent. Others gave them the means.
Now it’s our turn. This is your moment.
Belgian Roller Inline Hockey stands exactly where field hockey stood in 2005 and where women’s basketball stood in 2015. At a tipping point.
And this is no empty promise: it’s already real, already measurable, already concrete.
The track record that says it all — and that now needs defending.
🏆 Roccaraso 2024 — World Skate Games. Our Senior Men and our Senior Women (Belgian Red Wheels) qualified for the World Championships among the 24 best nations on the planet. The result? A 12th place in the world fought for on the Italian rink — the first-ever participation of the Senior Women in history, and a landmark performance for the Senior Men.
12th nation in the world. Out of 24 qualified. Ahead of several major European inline hockey nations.
That ranking wasn’t handed to us. But more importantly: that ranking now needs to be defended. The World Skate ranking system now runs on a multi-year basis. Every tournament counts. Every missed event costs. If Belgium misses Asunción 2026 for lack of funding, we fall. Years of work wiped out by a missing plane ticket.
🏆 Waterford, summer 2026 — U17 European Championships. The next wave is already on the rails. Our U17 are heading to Ireland this summer to defend Belgian colours at the highest European level. These kids are the Seniors of 2030. Tomorrow’s Red Lions didn’t start their careers in an Olympic final: they started at a U16 tournament where nobody was expecting them. This is exactly where it all begins.
🏆 Asunción 2026 — WorldSkate Games, Paraguay. Three national teams are aiming for qualification: Junior Men, Senior Men, Senior Women. Goal: defend the world ranking, climb higher, prove that Roccaraso wasn’t a one-off — it was the start of a trajectory.
What they have, what they don’t.
They have the level — the 12th world ranking proves it. They have the drive — they train year-round at their own expense. They have the coaches — a high-level volunteer staff. They have the next generation — the U17 take over this summer in Waterford.
What they don’t have? The means.
Unlike other disciplines, our Roller Inline Hockey athletes receive 0 % public funding. Zero. Every plane ticket, every hotel night, every international tournament, they pay out of their own pocket. Some work night shifts. Others ask family and friends for help. All of them, at some point, wonder whether they can keep going.
This is not a talent issue. This is a question of pioneers willing to dare.
Why you, why now?
Because the first sponsors are the ones people remember. Ask Immoweb, Orange, the National Lottery. Being there before the medal is what separates just another logo from a legendary partner.
Because the return on investment is real. Visibility across social media (FR/NL/EN), presence on national team jerseys, direct connection with an engaged community, association with powerful values: perseverance, teamwork, authenticity.
Because it’s humanly powerful. You’re not buying a billboard. You’re paying the plane ticket of a 19-year-old defending Belgian colours 10,000 kilometres from home, or of a 15-year-old Belgian player stepping onto his first major international tournament. You’re putting your name on their jersey, their story, their dream.
Because without you, nothing happens. No champion ever came out of nowhere alone. Behind every medal, there has always been someone who signed a cheque first — before the others, before the glory, before the certainty.
Our model: direct, transparent, impactful.
We’ve built a simple and unique model in Belgium: player-based sponsoring.
➡️ From €500 in sponsoring, 50 % goes directly to the player you support. The remaining 50 % feeds the national team’s common fund (logistics, coaching, collective travel).
➡️ Every euro has a face. You know who benefits from your support, who you’re paying the flight, the accommodation, the dream for. No abstraction. No administrative machine. One player. One sponsor. One connection.
➡️ You choose the scale. €500 for a decisive boost. €2,500 for a real partnership. €10,000 to become a pillar of a national team. Every option exists, every one counts.
What’s at stake.
If nobody dares today, our players will miss their generation. The WorldSkate Games 2026 will be played without Belgium, or with a stripped-down delegation. The European Championships will be played by athletes exhausted from self-funding everything. The sport will stay confidential. The talent will burn out.
If a few companies, a few individuals, a few visionaries dare now — the way Immoweb and Orange dared before — we write the next chapter of Belgian sport. The chapter where Roller Inline Hockey joins field hockey and women’s basketball in the pantheon of disciplines that broke through because someone believed first.
The call.
The Red Lions had their pioneers. The Belgian Cats had theirs. Our national teams are waiting for yours.
Not in five years, when it’s obvious. Not when we’ve got the medal. Now. When it counts. When it costs. When it changes everything.
12th nation in the world. A ranking to defend. A generation to propel. A story to write.
Dare. Sign. Write the story with us.
📩 BIHA sponsoring contact: fabrice.bohm@rollerhockey.be / +32 475 62 63 27 🌐 www.biha.be 📲 @inlinehockeybelgium on social media
“Behind every sport that became great, there was first a sponsor who said yes before the others.”
#DareToBeAPioneer #WriteTheStory #inlinehockeybelgium