The Women's Euro Winners Cup (WEWC) is an annual continental

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or sand soccer, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand between two teams of five players each. Association football has long been played informally on ...

club competition contested between top-division European women's teams; the clubs that are their country's national league/cup champions (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) from countries all across Europe take part. Organised by

Beach Soccer Worldwide Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) is the organisation responsible for the founding and growth of the association football-based sport of beach soccer. The founding partners of BSWW codified the rules of beach soccer in 1992, with BSWW as it is known ...

(BSWW), the championship is viewed as beach soccer's rudimentary version of the

UEFA Women's Champions League The UEFA Women's Champions League, previously called the UEFA Women's Cup (2001–2009), is a European women's association football competition. It involves the top club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body UEFA. ...

in its parent sport,

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

. Offering the strongest level of club competition in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, it is the most prestigious women's club beach soccer championship in Europe; the winners become continental champions. The first edition took place in 2016, following the founding of the men's edition three years prior. It takes place within the framework of the larger men's version of the tournament, happening during the same dates and location over the course of about a week. Higicontrol Melilla of Spain are the most successful club with three titles and are also the current champions.

Organisation

''As of 2022''

Founding

(BSWW) publicly announced the creation of the championship in December 2015, coming off the back of the multiple successful stagings of the men's edition since 2013. They cited the many women's national leagues/cups in Europe and their "strongest commitment" to begin ramping up the development of women's beach soccer as the reasons for its creation.

Qualification

From each European nation, the champions of their highest level of women's beach soccer competition (be it a national league or

knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, ...

cup) qualify for the event. In countries where women's clubs exist but a national women's league/cup does not yet take place, clubs can contact BSWW to register themselves as that country's representative. If a national association wishes to enter additional clubs who are not an incumbent league champion, they can request for permission to do so from the organisers BSWW who will grant or reject the clubs a berth at the tournament depending on the total number of teams already registered. In 2020 and 2021, qualification was completely abandoned due to health concerns and travel constraints caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

meaning many clubs could not compete. The competition was opened up to simply any club in Europe that was able and willing to participate; the competition format was also altered accordingly for these editions.

Format

The tournament starts with the group stage. The clubs are split into groups (typically of four) and compete in a round robin format. At the end of the group stage, the top 16 clubs advance to the knockout stage. The teams then compete in single-elimination matches; the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and ending with the final. Consolation matches are also played to determine the final rankings involving the clubs knocked out of these rounds.

Results

:A. San Javier won the penalty shootout 2–0. :B. Bonaire Terrassa won the penalty shootout 6–5. :Round robin. Indicates this edition was played as a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

. There was no final or third place match.

Performance

Successful clubs

Successful nations

Awards

Appearances & performance timeline

The following is an appearance and performance timeline of the countries who have been represented by clubs at the Women's Euro Winners Cup. It shows which countries were represented at each edition and by how many clubs. The colour of the cells indicates the furthest any of that country's clubs progressed in the competition in that edition, corresponding to the key below. 20 members of UEFA have been represented by at least one club in at least one edition to date. ;Key

a. Not used in 2020–21.

b. Not used in 2016–17, 20–22.

;Timeline

References

External links

Beach Soccer Worldwide
official website
Euro Winners Cup
at Beach Soccer Russia (in Russian) {{European sport club competitions International beach soccer competitions Women's association football competitions in Europe 2016 establishments in Europe Recurring sporting events established in 2016 Multi-national professional sports leagues