An agreement was signed this month that will see Estepona staging this year's European Beach Football Championships.

The tournament which will be held over 6 weeks in September and October this year will be contested by over 4,000 competitors featuring some of the top players in the game.

576 male and 144 female teams will compete in three categories, Men, Women and Under 19s for a total prize money of 100,000 euros with all the matches open to public spectators.

The competition is a collaboration between the Swiss based sports body Union of European Beachsoccer Associations (UEBA), German promoter Beach Club GmbH, and Estepona Town Hall's Sports Department.

There will be a launch ceremony in Estepona's Bullring over the 18th, 19th and 20th May, with concerts, celebrities and exhibition matches by some of the top names in beach soccer.

As well as putting Estepona firmly on the map for this exciting sport which began in Brazil and is now played in some 170 countries and numbers such famous names as Zico, Junior and Eric Cantona amongst its stars, and is tipped for inclusion in the 2008 Olympics, the tournament is also expected to create between 30 and 50 jobs locally, also to be considered are the financial benefits to the local economy of the large number of participants and visitors that the tournament will bring to the area.