The championship is widely viewed as beach soccer's rudimentary version of the better known UEFA Champions League in its parent sport, association football.

At its conclusion, the best teams progressed to the knockout stage, a series of single elimination games to determine the winners, starting with the Round of 16 and ending with the final.

Braga of Portugal won the tournament, claiming their fourth European crown;[11] they defeated Pisa of Italy in the final, condemning the Tuscans to a consecutive runners-up finish.

BSWW determine the strength of each league by analysing the performance of all clubs in the EWC on a country-by-country basis over the previous five editions; a points-based ranking is produced from the data.

Any and all clubs that do not qualify via their league placing, and/or are surplus to their countries' allocated quotas, are invited to enter the accompanying Euro Winners Challenge (preliminary round) to begin in the days prior to the competition proper.

[15] In accordance with sanctions imposed by FIFA and UEFA in 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[16][17][18][19] clubs from Russia remain banned from entering this year.