Goal 4. Organise more youth tournaments at various age levels
2026 update
The opportunity to give every talent the chance to shine, no matter when or where in the world they are born, is deeply enshrined in FIFA’s Strategic Objectives. That much is self-evident given the significant progress in this area since 2023.
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 countries – Austria, Cameroon, Fiji and Morocco – qualifying for the first time. The growth of playing opportunities was greeted enthusiastically by the public with 32,127 joining FIFA President Gianni Infantino in seeing the hosts defeat Australia 2-0 on the opening day. Indeed, every one of Colombia’s five matches at the tournament attracted crowds in excess of 30,000, while almost 33,000 witnessed DPR Korea’s victory over Japan in the final in Bogotá.
Some young talents were missing out on the opportunity to feature at global tournaments with the staging of the U-17 category FIFA World Cups on a biannual basis. That resulted in the FIFA Council in March 2024 making both the men’s and women’s tournaments annual and appointing Qatar and Morocco as the respective host nations for the next five editions. Expanded to 48 and 24 teams respectively from 2025, across the inaugural editions of both new-look tournaments nine countries got their first taste of the global stage (women’s: Côte d’Ivoire, Netherlands, Norway, Samoa; men’s: El Salvador, Fiji, Republic of Ireland, Uganda, Zambia). By contrast, hosts Indonesia were the sole debutants of the men’s 2023 tournament, while the women’s tournament in Dominican Republic in late 2024 also featured four debutants.
Under President Infantino’s leadership, FIFA widened its focus on grassroots football to complement the FIFA Football for Schools programme. The first FIFA U-15 Festival will take place in 2026 and will feature boys’ national teams. In 2027, the focus will shift to girls’ U-15 teams. From 2028 onwards, FIFA plans to organise two separate festivals each year — one for boys and one for girls — ensuring participation opportunities for all 211 MAs.
The FIFA Arena project also came into being during 2025. It follows up on the commitment made by FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Sport for Sustainable Development Summit held in Paris, France in July 2024, when he announced FIFA’s objective to build mini-pitches in underprivileged areas around the world. Officially launched by Mr Infantino at the 75th FIFA Congress in Asunción, Paraguay, in May 2025, mini-pitches have already been established in several countries with the aim of installing at least 1,000 by the FIFA Congress in 2031.
Goal 4 overview
FIFA has a statutory duty to improve the game of football and to organise its own international competitions. However, it also needs to ensure that there are more age-restricted competitions to give member associations the opportunity to play on the global stage, that players have the chance to play competitively from a young age, and that the best players have a pathway to a professional career.