It promises to be a day that Azerbaijan’s U-15 players will never forget. Following the opening ceremony of the FIFA U-15 World Cup & Festival 2026™ at Baku’s Crystal Hall on 24 October 2026, they will walk out to face Timor-Leste and kick off, on home soil, the very first edition of a brand new FIFA tournament.

Boys’ teams featuring some 3,000 children from 189 FIFA Member Associations (MAs) will take part in the new competition, and for so many of them it will be their first real experience of international football.

Most of the tournament’s matches will be played at the Hövsan Competition Complex, a custom-built venue that has risen from an empty plot of land. It is a project delivered by the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA) to ready the country for the tournament in compliance with FIFA standards – and one that AFFA sees as being about far more than a single event.

“We are delighted to welcome young players from around the world to Azerbaijan for the inaugural FIFA U-15 World Cup and Festival 2026. Football has a unique magic that brings people together, and this event is an excellent opportunity for young athletes to build friendships, discover different cultures and share their passion for the game,” said AFFA President Rovshan Najaf.

“To everyone stepping onto the pitch: dream big, support one another and enjoy every moment of this experience. We are incredibly proud to host this celebration of football and provide new facilities that will leave a lasting legacy for local youth academies and clubs, helping to nurture future generations of football talent in Azerbaijan,” he added.

In AFFA’s view, Hövsan is an investment in the next generation of Azerbaijani footballers and in the country’s ability to turn ambition into reality.

Providing young players with international match experience is at the heart of the new FIFA U-15 World Cup & Festival.

“Talent exists everywhere, but young players do not always have the same opportunities to test themselves internationally,” said Arsène Wenger, FIFA Chief of Global Football Development.

“This tournament is about providing them with that opportunity. By bringing teams from across the world together at U-15 level, we can give players meaningful matches, expose them to different styles and football cultures, and help them learn and develop through competition.”

The competition has been designed with that objective in mind. Matches will be played in an 8v8 format with two 20-minute halves. Every team will play four or five matches in the qualification stage and another four or five in the tournament stage, meaning all teams will remain involved through to the final matchday.

For Azerbaijan, the tournament also provides an opportunity to put youth football in the spotlight.

Between 2016 and 2022, Azerbaijan had USD 9.9m in approved FIFA Forward Programme funding, with USD 6.2m directed towards football infrastructure. Projects supported through Forward 1.0 and 2.0 have included the reconstruction of Ganja City Stadium, the installation of two grass pitches at Sumqayit City Stadium and a grass pitch at Baku Olympic Stadium. A commitment of USD 480k under Forward 2.0 in August 2022 also brought the video assistant referee (VAR) system to the Azerbaijan Premier League and Cup, with three Video Operation Rooms in Baku and one mobile room able to manage four matches at the same time.

Funding has continued since 2022, with several infrastructure projects implemented with AFFA through to 2025. These include the construction of an academy in Ganja city (USD 745,000, 2023); reconstruction works at Agsu Stadium, which included the replacement of its pitch (USD 275,000, 2023-2024); reconstruction works at the Dalga Arena Training Centre (USD 194,651, 2024); the replacement of three artificial pitches at the Dalga, Bina and Agsu stadiums (USD 1,089,962, 2023-2024); and further renovation works at the National Training Centre (USD 146,634, 2025). Since 2016, Azerbaijan has had USD 17.9m in approved FIFA Forward Programme funding in total.

From Tovuz to the international stage One of the projects to benefit is the Turan Tovuz Football Academy in north-west Azerbaijan. Increasing participation in the regions and making football more inclusive are among AFFA’s objectives, and the academy was developed as part of that strategy with support from the FIFA Forward Programme, UEFA and AFFA.

The FIFA Forward Programme contributed USD 1.1m to the project. The complex includes four mini-pitches (one of them indoor), accommodation, dining and medical facilities, a gym, sauna and meeting room. The neighbouring Tovuz City Stadium was also renovated and modernised. The facility has become an important football centre for the region, creating additional opportunities for the development of young and professional players.

Youth development has also been supported through the FIFA Talent Development Scheme. In 2024, funding helped create a talent pool programme for U-15 girls and boys affected by the relative age effect, and for U-14 players. A year later, funding backed a modern scouting platform and central database to support structured talent identification, with 48 cameras installed in eight stadiums for video analysis. In 2026, further funding is helping to deploy the Scouting and Player Tracking Platform across the youth football system, covering 1,300 matches in seven leagues.

A partnership that works both ways Azerbaijan’s involvement in FIFA initiatives runs deeper than any single tournament.

That involvement has been visible in the FIFA Series™, which gives national teams more intercontinental experience. Azerbaijan’s experience of staging FIFA events dates back to the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Azerbaijan 2012™, and it has since hosted matches in both the 2024 and 2026 editions of the FIFA Series, welcoming teams including Bulgaria, Mongolia, St Lucia, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. Najaf described hosting the 2024 edition as “a very good opportunity to increase people’s attention to football”.

AFFA also took part in the FIFA Arena pilot project and, in September 2025, was among the first 11 MAs to complete a FIFA Arena project, building pitches at two schools for the benefit of more than 6,000 students. In September 2026, the AFFA announced the official rollout and expansion of the FIFA Football for Schools mobile app in Azerbaijani.

A pathway that continues beyond 2026 For the young Azerbaijani players preparing to take part, the global stage is now coming to them.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino met Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and members of the country’s U-15 boys’ team during a visit to Baku on 29 September 2026. Together with Najaf, he also visited the Hövsan Competition Complex.

“This is unique, this is FIFA giving opportunities to everyone, everywhere in the world, because football belongs to them, to everyone everywhere, and FIFA as well, uniting the world. Stay tuned and come to Azerbaijan in October. It’s a beautiful country and we will unite the world,” Mr Infantino said.

Hosting rights were approved by the Bureau of the FIFA Council on 24 June 2026, a decision Najaf hailed as a sign of the strong partnership between the AFFA and FIFA. The Azerbaijani government has since backed the event further, with President Aliyev signing a decree on 21 September 2026 to simplify visa procedures for foreign visitors arriving for the tournament.

The opportunity provided to Azerbaijan’s U-15 players this October will not stand in isolation. The country will co-host the FIFA U-20 World Cup Azerbaijan & Uzbekistan 2027™ with Uzbekistan, marking Azerbaijan’s first appearance at the tournament and providing what FIFA has described as a sense of strategic continuity between the two youth competitions.

For Azerbaijan, that connects several strands of its football development: investment in facilities such as the Turan Tovuz Football Academy, talent development, a growing role in FIFA initiatives such as the FIFA Series and FIFA Arena, more opportunities for young players, and now two global FIFA youth competitions in successive years.

The first of those opportunities begins on 24 October, when Azerbaijan’s U-15 players walk out to face Timor-Leste.