Held in Nazaré, Portugal, from 30 May to 4 June 2017 in tandem with the men's edition,[1] the event started with a round robin group stage. At its conclusion, the best teams progressed to the knockout stage, a series of single elimination games to determine the winners. Consolation matches were also played to determine other final rankings.
Swiss club Grasshoppers were the defending champions, but failed to qualify. The tournament was won by Swiss team Havana Shots Aargau who beat England's Portsmouth in the final to win their first European title.[3]
Russians WFC Zvezda were the only team to finish in the top four again having done so in the previous year's first edition.
20 teams entered the tournament (an increase from 12 in the inaugural edition) – the top-level domestic beach soccer league/championship champions plus, for some countries, other top non-champions clubs from the nation indicated.[4][5]
The draw to split the 20 teams into five groups of four took place on 4 April in the host city of Nazaré, Portugal alongside the men's competition draw.[4]
As the club representing the host association of Portugal, AF Leiria were assigned to Group A. Four other teams were seeded (Beachkick Ladies Berlin, Havana Shots Aargau, WFC Neva, Terracina Ladies) and each assigned to one the remaining groups. The teams were seeded because their national association's club finished in the top four in the previous edition in 2016.[6]
Clubs from the same country could not be drawn into the same group.[6]
The three best runners-up advanced to knockout stage. The ranking of the five runners-up was determined on goal average.[7] Since Group E consisted of three teams, for the runners-up from the other groups (A, B, C, D), their results against the teams finishing in fourth place in their group were discounted for this ranking.
From the group stage, the five teams finishing in third place, plus the two-worst runners-up and the best fourth placed team were knocked out of title-winning contention, receding to play in consolation matches to determine 9th through 16th place in the final standings.