Organise more youth tournaments at various age levels

The opportunity to give every talent the chance to shine, no matter when or where in the world they were born, is deeply enshrined in these strategic objectives and delivered upon in terms of the expansion of global youth tournaments over this two-year reporting period. 

The FIFA Women’s Under-20 World Cup Colombia 2024 saw the field of participants increased from 16 to 24 teams and resulted in four teams qualifying for the final tournament for the first time (Austria, Cameroon, Fiji and Morocco). The growth of playing opportunities was greeted enthuasiastically by the public with 32,127 joining FIFA President Gianni Infantino in witnessing the hosts defeat Australia 2-0 on the opening day of the tournament. Indeed, every one of Colombia’s five matches at the tournament attracted crowds in excess of 30,000, whilst almost 33,000 witnessed DPR Korea’s victory over Japan in the final in Bogotá.

Some talents were missing out on the opportunity to feature at global tournaments with the staging of Under-17 World Cups on a biannual basis, so that has been amended with the move to annual competitions from 2025. Hosts Indonesia were the sole debutants in the field for the last FIFA Under-17 World Cup in November-December 2023 but more talents have the dream of representing their country in front of worldwide audiences with the new-look yearly event featuring 48 teams rather than 24. The participants will enjoy state-of-the-art facilities for the first five editions of the expanded tournament with Qatar announced as the hosts for all of them by the FIFA Council in March 2024, utilising the exceptional infrastructure of the greatest ever FIFA World Cup and delivering lasting legacy through youth football.

The FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup also becomes annual from 2025 with the first five editions giving Morocco ample preparation for their role in co-hosting the centenary FIFA World Cup in 2030. The field of 16 teams at the most recent edition in Dominican Republic in October-November 2024 featured four competitive debutants with both Ecuador and Poland reaching the quarter-finals on their maiden appearance in the tournament and Kenya marking their first visit with a stunning 2-1 win over Mexico in the group stage. The increase in participants to 24 now greatly increases participation chances and is an opportunity to bolster player development as they perform against different opponents before sizeable crowds in the stadium and via global broadcast.

Further support for players in the formative phase of their development was suggested by the FIFA President as a worldwide celebration of youth football during his keynote address to the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, in May 2024. Speaking to delegates, the President proposed festivals, rather than competitions, for boys and girls from all 211 of FIFA’s Member Associations, without qualification, launching discussions on the precise format that such an event would take.