The draw of the tournament was held on 4 June 2021, 18:00 PYT (UTC−4), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay. The hosts and holders, Brazil, and the previous tournament's runners-up, Uruguay were seeded and assigned to the head of the groups A and B respectively. The remaining eight teams were split into four "pairing pots" (Paraguay–Argentina, Peru–Colombia, Chile–Ecuador, Bolivia–Venezuela) based on the final placement they reached in the previous edition of the tournament (shown in brackets).[3]
From each pot, the first team drawn was placed into Group A and then its position within the group was drawn; the second team drawn was placed into Group B and its position within the group was also defined by draw.[3]
On 8 June 2021, CONMEBOL announced a total of 18 referees appointed for the tournament.[5][6]
Mariano Romo
Pablo Defelippi
Jaimito Suárez
José Luis Mendoza
Lucas Estevão
Luciano Andrade
Jorge Darío Cortés
Jorge Iván Gómez
Erney Gonzalo Ramos
Brando Luis Amay
Silvio Coronel
Gustavo Domínguez
Alex Valdivieso
Micke Palomino
Christian Altez
Aecio Fernández
Jesús Leandro Reyes
Luis Coy
Group stage
Each team earns three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time, one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out, and no points for a defeat. The top two teams from each group advance to the semi-finals, while the teams in third, fourth and fifth advance to the fifth place, seventh place, and ninth place matches respectively.
All times are local, BRT (UTC−3);[7][8][9] match reports are in Spanish.
1 No qualifiers took place; representatives were selected by the confederation. 2 CONCACAF and CONMEBOL held a joint championship for qualification. 3 Qualification was achieved through the Euro Beach Soccer League. (p) This indicates an additional play-off round, supplement to the main qualification event.