Baku opens the door: What the first FIFA U-15 World Cup & Festival™ means for world football
· Yahoo Sports
More than 3,000 young players and officials from 189 nations have gathered in Azerbaijan. For many smaller associations, the first FIFA U-15 World Cup & Festival™ is their debut on the big stage, and part of a longer-term plan.
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For one week, Baku belongs to football’s next generation. The first FIFA U-15 World Cup & Festival™ has brought together more than 3,000 youth players and officials from 189 FIFA Member Associations. Around 1,000 matches are on the schedule before the final at Baku Crystal Hall on 30 October. Look a little closer and it becomes clear that this is about more than results and standings: the tournament shows how FIFA wants to spread development across the global game more widely.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino set out that ambition at the opening. The tournament, he said, “truly unites the world”. People like to say football brings the world together, he noted, but this is the first time more than 3,000 players and officials from every part of the globe have gathered in one place like this.
One number stands out. 78 of the participating associations are appearing at a FIFA World Cup competition for the first time, at any age level. For them, Baku opens a door that has long stayed shut. John Gutierrez, President of the Philippine Football Federation, sees a clear message in that: “I think it tells us that the FIFA president... is very much considerate about the welfare of other nations, not just the top nations in the world, but also developing nations.” The leadership, he added, “cares about the smaller countries, the smaller markets that want to get to the level of the bigger markets”.
Access on the pitch goes hand in hand with support off it. For the 2027–2030 cycle, FIFA has proposed allocating USD 25 million to every Member Association. For many of the associations represented in Baku, that money matters: it goes into youth and women’s football, infrastructure and long-term development projects.
The Turks and Caicos Islands show what that looks like in practice. “We are a very small country, with about 50,000 people,” says association president Sonia Bien-Aime Fulford. “Imagine our boys coming here to play against teams from countries they’ve only heard about, some they can’t even pronounce the name of.” Even with far less money, she explains, the FIFA Forward programme has already delivered two full-size pitches, a beach soccer and a futsal field, and a new 27-room dormitory. Going forward, the association plans to direct its funds even more towards women’s and youth football.
The idea behind it is straightforward. Investment helps countries develop players at home, and tournaments like the one in Baku then give those players the chance to test themselves internationally and see what is possible in world football. Marlon Glean, President of the Grenada Football Association, sees that link as the strength of the approach: “Since the president has been in office, he’s invested heavily in areas where there’s not much resources in the Caribbean, in Africa, in Asia, in Oceania.” Pointing to the accompanying development programme, he added: “If you look at the Talent Development Scheme, which complements this competition... it just shows that his thinking is very advanced.”
Bringing smaller and bigger football nations together is deliberate, and it shapes the format. Arsène Wenger, FIFA Chief of Global Football Development, explains the thinking: “We wanted it to be a reduced number, not 11 against 11, because the difference between the countries would be too big. We wanted shorter games, you know, (so) that everybody can meet everybody.” The smaller countries, he says, can “go home after, certainly full of dreams and of happy moments”, while also knowing what they need to work on. “When you say, ‘Give every talent a chance’, it’s about opportunity,” Wenger adds. “Here they can come, play and discover that they have the needed quality to exist at the top level.”
Hussein Mohamed, President of the Football Kenya Federation, also sees the tournament as a starting point rather than a one-off: “For the first time in the history of football, we have never seen so many countries congregate in one place like we have seen in Azerbaijan.” He called the festival “a testament to President Gianni Infantino’s commitment to youth development programs”. Infantino’s own verdict was brief: the first edition was “exactly what we wanted”.
And there is more to come. From 2028, the tournament is set to take place every year, for both boys and girls. Baku may well be remembered as more than a premiere. If tournament access and targeted local funding continue to work together, the festival could become a blueprint for bringing football development to places where it has rarely reached before.