The 3rd stage of the mini-football children’s competition “1,000 Teams Tournament” finished in Kharkiv oblast. Young football players who won in the first and the most numerous stage of the Tournament, which started on September 25, 2015, and then in the second stage, where they became the champions of their regions, got the right to fight in the final. The competitions were held according to the area-based principle: the teams arrived to the towns, which were the most comfortable for them and with the equipped sport complexes.
The winners of the third stage among boys are the following teams:
— town of Kupiansk (Secondary school No. 6);
— Velykyi Burluk region (Pidserednie secondary school);
— Shevchenkovo region (Shevchenkovo lyceum school);
— Dvorichna region (Petro-Ivanivka general secondary school);
— Balakliia region (Chervonyi Donets general secondary school No. 1);
— town of Pervomaiskyi (general secondary school No. 5);
— Krasnohrad region (“Grand” upper secondary school);
— Lozova region (Orilka Educational complex);
— Valky region (Maselsky Valky lyceum school);
— Kolomak region (Shelestovo general secondary school).
The winners of the third stage among girls are the following teams:
— town of Kupiansk (general secondary school No. 12);
— Pechenihy region (Semyhradskyi lyceum school);
— Borova region (Borova general secondary school No. 1);
— Krasnohrad region (“Grand” upper secondary school);
— Pervomaiskyi region (general secondary school No. 6);
— Nova Vodolaha region (Okhoche general secondary school);
— Bohodukhiv region (Bohodukhiv collegium No. 2).
Now, they will have to compete in the final of one of Europe’s biggest children’s football competitions, which became the hallmark of Kharkiv region sport life. The awards for the winners of the “1,000 Teams Tournament” will include not only medals and diplomas, but also the excursion trips. The team winning the third place will visit Lviv, the second one – Warsaw, and the champions will visit football’s native land – London.
In the near future, the organizers of the “1,000 Teams Tournament” are planning to make it an international competition. Young football players from Germany, Poland, Israel and other countries are already ready to take part in it.
“We want to develop youth diplomacy with the help of sport,” the founder of the Tournament, the MP Oleksandr Feldman emphasized. “It removes barriers of misunderstanding and cures from xenophobia.”
However, the main thing, according to Mr. Feldman, is the mass character of the competitions. It is the chance to take children away from the streets and dark corners, and to provide the wonderful alternative to purposeless and sometimes even dangerous pastime.
It should be noted that the “1,000 Teams Tournament” has been held since 2001. This was the first large-scale project in Ukraine directed at the revival of the mass children and youth sport. Moreover, the competitions launched the long-term charitable programme of the ICF “Oleksandr Feldman Foundation” named “Take children away from the streets.”
“1,000 Teams Tournament” is very popular: during 7 years, over a million pupils aged 10 to 12 took part in it. The Football Federation of Ukraine included this Tournament into its official calendar, and the UEFA recognized it as the largest children’s football competition in Europe providing the 5 star status to Ukraine within UEFA Grassroots Charter.
