The Belgian national team has won the 2025 Quidditch World Cup, becoming the first European team to win the championship.
Quidditch is a team game inspired by the fictional sport invented by JK Rowling in her Harry Potter book series. In the books, quidditch is played by witches and wizards riding flying on broomsticks. In the real-life version of the game, players sit on broomsticks, but run rather than fly.
It is played by two mixed teams of seven players competing to send a volleyball through one of the opposing team's three hoops, while trying to catch a ‘flag’ carried by a neutral player.
In 2022, the sport’s governing body decided to officially change the name of the sport from quidditch to quadball – partly as a due to rights issues, and partly to dissociate itself from JK Rowling, whom it accused of transphobia (a claim which Rowling refutes).
Quidditch-quadball is played in 40 countries, and the inaugural World Cup was held in Oxford in 2012. This year’s event took place in Tubize, Wallonia, with 20 teams competing for the title.
In the final, which took place on 13 July, the Belgian Griffins secured a historic win over Germany, after placing second in 2018 and third in 2023. Around 2,000 people turned out to watch the match.
Quidditch-quadball has long been dominated by the US, which won four out of five previous editions of the World Cup.
Belgian player Seppe De Wit, who has practised the sport since the age of 12, told AFP that winning the trophy “one of the best days of my life”.
Belgium previously hosted the sport's European championships in 2014, 2017 and 2019.
