page_title: Euro Beach Soccer League
section_title: Current era – promotion and relegation (2009–present)
hierarchical_section_title: Euro Beach Soccer League / History / Current era – promotion and relegation (2009–present)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Sébastien Maté - Beach-soccer - Equipe de France - Euro Beach Soccer League 2010 - Marseille. Noms&#160;: 1-Sébastien Hamel, 5-Anthony Fayos, 4-Jean-Christophe Devaux, 8-Stéphane François, 2-?, 16-Sébastien Maté, ent-Éric Cantona; staff-Laurent Castro, 14-Noël Sciortino, 6-Anthony Mendy, 7-Jérémy Basquaise, 10-Mickael Pagis, staff-?
context_page_description: The Euro Beach Soccer League is the premier competition in beach soccer contested between European men's national teams. Originally called the European Pro Beach Soccer League until 2004, the competition has been held annually since its establishment in 1998, making it not only the oldest beach soccer tournament in Europe but one of the oldest still in existence in the world, only surpassed in longevity by the World Cup and Mundialito events. The EBSL was originally created to promote the newly founded sport in Europe in a competitive environment.
  Organised by Beach Soccer Worldwide, the teams of the league compete in two divisions; A, consisting of the league's 12 best nations and B, consisting of the other teams competing that year. A system of promotion and relegation exists between the two divisions.
  The league is played in two phases; a regular season and a post-season.
context_section_description: The 2008 EBSL season was greatly affected by the scheduling of the World Cup which shortened the league's calendar. Because of the time constraints, the 2006-07 format could not be implemented. Instead, all the teams of the league (of all abilities) competed in one unified division in what was ultimately an anomalous season in terms of its format.
  Heading into the 2009 season, BSWW did not return to the 2006-07 format and instead completely revamped the league's format, primarily introducing a system of promotion and relegation between Divisions A and B involving making the Superfinal a Division A only event, the establishment of a second post-season event exclusively for Division B nations, the Promotion Final, in which promotion is achieved, and reverting to having the regular seasons of the two divisions occur concurrently as in 2001-05. (see current format for more)
  During this era participation has continued to increase, breaking the 20-team barrier in 2011 and a record 27 nations competed in 2017, seeing participation expand to nations even as small as Moldova and Andorra and as far east as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, debuting and becoming league regulars. The Superfinal and regular season stages have also spread out further across Europe. The Superfinal has been staged in Estonia, Portugal and Russia, whilst regular season stages have been hosted in Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine. Russia's rise culminated with their first title in 2009; with four further titles since, Russia equalled Spain and Portugal's long standing record tally of five titles in 2017, and at least finishing in the top four every season since 2007, the Russians have cemented their position as a superpower. During this period Portugal have continued to be a dominant side, having added another three titles to their haul, earning a record sixth title in 2019, whilst Switzerland and Ukraine have claimed their maiden crowns. On the other hand, this era has seen the demise of nations like France, who saw relegation to Division B in 2010 and again 2012, meanwhile Spain have only made two finals during these ten years, despite their five previous titles.
caption: France, coached by Eric Cantona (top right), lined up before a match in the Marseille stage of the 2010 season
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