Children of the world will come together at the U12 Izmir Cup

The Turkish Football Federation attaches great importance and support to the U12 İzmir Cup tournament, where it is the main stakeholder within the scope of its 100th anniversary events.

TFF President Mehmet Büyükekşi, who will be the guest of the opening ceremony of the tournament to be held on April 7, stated that they have implemented the ‘Football Academies’ project in order to create the development of young players in Turkish football in a healthy and sustainable way at international standards.

Emphasizing that the development of young football players in the world begins in the U6-U9 age group and that this age group has a critical importance, Büyükekşi said that with the football academies project, they will provide all kinds of support for the development of young football players from U6 to U19 and the training of coaches who will train them.

Wishing success to all the children who will participate in this meaningful tournament from both Turkey and all over the world, Büyükekşi stated that they would be very happy to host all teams from abroad with Turkish hospitality in İzmir.

The excitement will be at its peak at the U12 İzmir Cup, where 72 teams from around the world will participate and young talents born in 2011 and later will come together and interact.

The tournament, in which 28 teams from our country, together with the U12 teams of the Super League clubs such as Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray and Trabzonspor, as well as the 1st League, lower leagues and amateur clubs will participate, will be played on April 7-8-9.

The tournament, which will bring together the infrastructures of giant teams from different leagues of the world such as Chelsea, Porto, Athletic Bilbao, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-German and Juventus, will be held at Altınordu İsmet Orhunbilge Facilities in Selçuk district of İzmir.

Teams that pass the group and qualifying stages will advance to the finals.

In the tournament, which will consist of group and elimination stages, 9 groups from 8 teams were formed. The teams that complete their group in the top 4 will go to the last 32 rounds and will try to win the cup with the matches to be played in elimination style.

The aim of the tournament is to get to know and interact with each other among young people, coaches and technical teams rather than winning. Except for the final and third place match, all matches will be played in a single half of 20 minutes.

The final and the third place match will be played in two halves of 15 minutes each. After the final match on April 9, at 16:30, a trophy and medal ceremony will be held.

The motto of the tournament: Good individual, good citizen, good football player

He used the slogan of «Good individual, good citizen, good football player», which is the slogan of Altınordu in the logo of the tournament. This international tournament, which has been held since 2013, is organized for the happiness of «Children of the World» and aims to contribute to the development of children.