Supported by the UEFA Foundation for Children, Euro Foot Jeunes was launched on 1 October by the UNSS, the ISF, EURO 2016 SAS and the FFF.
Supported by the UEFA Foundation for Children, Euro Foot Jeunes was launched on 1 October by the national union of school sport (UNSS), the International School Sport Federation (ISF), EURO 2016 SAS and the French Football Federation (FFF).
The foundation was established on the initiative of UEFA and the UEFA President, Michel Platini, and emphasises UEFA’s desire to play a more active role in society. For many years UEFA has supported various children’s initiatives and programmes. This support has led the foundation to work with several partners to develop projects both inside and outside Europe. Euro Foot Jeunes is one such project.
From 29 May to 5 June, just before UEFA EURO 2016 officially begins, the cities of Lens and Lille will host the boys’ and girls’ European schools’ football tournaments. The aim is to gather all 54 UEFA nations together in France so that they can be part of the ultimate celebration of football. Euro Foot Jeunes will bring together participants of 45 nationalities and almost 1,000 players from the 30 European countries that have not qualified for the main event.
The cities of Lens and Lille were chosen to host the tournaments by the organisers.
Euro Foot Jeunes will take place at top sports facilities provided by Lille Metropole and RC Lens: Stade Pierre Mauroy, which will host six UEFA EURO 2016 matches, and La Gaillette, RC Lens’s training and development centre. The matches will be supervised and refereed by 300 young people from the UNSS in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In addition to the sporting dimension, there will be a strong educational component, which will provide an opportunity to highlight the diversity of educational pathways and the numerous different projects devised to help all pupils succeed. “We hope Euro Foot Jeunes 2016 will be a chance to reinforce the UNSS’s educational aspect, with the help of a big international sports event in France,” said the UNSS national director, Laurent Petrynka.