The 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the 20th edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, contested by the under-17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 3–27 November. This edition marked the last of the biannual scheduling and the first the new annual cycle adopted by FIFA for the U-17 World Cup and expanded to be the first to be played in a 48-team format. As part of these changes, FIFA also granted Qatar the hosting rights for the tournament for a five-year period from 2025 to 2029.
Germany were the defending champions, having won their first title in 2023. They were eliminated in the round of 32 by Burkina Faso, the earliest exit for a team holding the U-17 World Cup title who qualified for the subsequent tournament.
Portugal won their first title after defeating Austria 1–0 in the final.
Format changes Starting with this edition, the FIFA U-17 World Cup featured a number of changes to its format adopted during 2023. These changes stemmed from a proposal submitted by the Liberia Football Association at the 71st FIFA Congress held virtually on 21 May 2021, regarding FIFA's youth tournaments. FIFA initiated a consultative process among its member associations before publishing a report by the FIFA Chief of Global Football Development Arsène Wenger, which included an annual 48-team U-17 World Cup. Over the following months these proposals continued to be evaluated and analysed until they were approved by the FIFA Council in October 2023, and then confirmed on 14 March 2024.
The original new competition format would have had 48 participating teams divided into four 12-team mini-tournaments consisting of three groups of four teams in single round-robin format. Within each mini-tournament, the three group winners plus the best second-placed team would advance to the semi-finals (essentially tournament's round of 16) and final (essentially tournament's quarter-finals). The four mini-tournaments winners would qualify for the final four consisting of semi-finals, third place play-off and the grand final, which would determine the champions of the tournament.
In March 2025, FIFA announced that the format would be changed to mirror that of the FIFA World Cup from 2026 onwards. The teams were divided into 12 groups of four teams each, with each group playing in a single round-robin format, thus each team played three matches. The top two teams from each group (24 teams) and the eight best third-placed teams advanced to the knockout stage, starting at the round of 32 all the way to the final. In total, the tournament included 104 matches, double the amount of past editions.
Host selection On 15 November 2023, FIFA launched a global call for expressions of interest from member associations to host the next five editions of the U17 World Cup (2025–2029) as a single consolidated package. Member associations had to express their interest no later than 4 December 2023.
After a FIFA Council meeting held on 14 March 2024, it was announced that Qatar would host the next five editions of the U-17 World Cup (2025–2029), as part of the new annual cycle implemented by FIFA for the tournament. This was the first time that Qatar hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup and the third time that the tournament was held in the Arab world.
Controversies Although FIFA did not disclose whether there were other interested member associations, a joint bid by Indonesia and Singapore and another by Denmark were known to have been submitted.
The Danish Football Association accused FIFA of changing the format to a five-year package without clearly announcing it. They said that they and other potential bidders were blindsided by FIFA when Qatar and Morocco—who was chosen to host the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup during the same years—ended up with the deal, saying that "FIFA moved the goalposts".
This joined previous controversies regarding Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, such as violations of the human rights of migrant workers and FIFA's ban on the Danish football team training with pro-human rights shirts. In 2024, Amnesty International criticized FIFA and Qatar for not yet addressing the "severe" human rights violations surrounding the hosting of the 2022 World Cup, claiming that they are not taking responsibility for "the vast number of migrant workers who were exploited and in many cases died to make the 2022 World Cup possible". In 2025, Amnesty reported that "the Qatari authorities continued to fail to investigate effectively the deaths of migrant workers and to hold employers or authorities accountable, preventing any assessment of whether the deaths were work-related and depriving families of the opportunity to receive compensation." Also in 2025, Human Rights Watch stated that despite scrutiny regarding migrant worker deaths building up to the tournament, Qatar "has failed to prevent, investigate, or compensate" for the deaths of thousands of them.
Venues The host venues were announced by FIFA on 22 May 2025.
All matches were held in the city of Al Rayyan inside the "Aspire Zone" sport complex. The final took place at the Khalifa International Stadium, which was also in the Aspire Zone. The eight pitches used were named after eight former Qatar national football team players; Mohammed Ghanim (pitch 1), Ibrahim Khalfan (pitch 2), Badr Bilal (pitch 3), Khalid Salman (pitch 4), Khaled Ballan (pitch 5), Mansour Muftah (pitch 7), Mahmoud Soufi (pitch 8), and Adel Ahmed Malalla (pitch 9). Only Soufi and Ballan had died before the tournament started.
+2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup venuesAl RayyanAspire Zone 8 pitches Capacity: 45,857
Teams Qualification
A total of 48 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to Qatar, who qualified automatically as the host nation, the other 47 teams qualified from six separate continental competitions. The new expanded slot allocation per confederation was approved by the FIFA Council meeting held on 15 May 2024:
AFC (Asia): 9 (including the hosts Qatar) CAF (Africa): 10 CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean): 8 CONMEBOL (South America): 7 OFC (Oceania): 3 UEFA (Europe): 11
El Salvador, Fiji, Republic of Ireland, Uganda and Zambia made their debut in the tournament. Uganda made their first appearance in a FIFA tournament.
Bolivia qualified for its first U-17 World Cup since 1987 and to any FIFA tournament for the first time since the 1994 FIFA World Cup. After hosting the 2023 edition, Indonesia qualified by merit to a FIFA U-17 World Cup. Switzerland qualified for only the second time ever, their first return to the U-17 World Cup since winning it in 2009.
Ecuador, Iran, Poland and Spain failed to qualify having appeared at the 2023 edition. Record champions Nigeria did not qualify for the second consecutive tournament.
Qualifying tournamentTeamQualification dateAppearance(s)Previous best performanceHost nation8th198520051 (1991)2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup4th198519891 (1989)201120232 (2011, 2023)2nd20232 (2023)11th199320234 (1993, 2011)8th198720233 (1987, 2009, 2019)4th199120131 (2009)6th200520171 (2005)3rd200720191 (2007)2025 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations6th199920232 (2001)7th199720232 (2015)3rd201320232 (2023)2nd20151 (2015)1stDebut5th198720131 (1987)3rd201920233 (2019, 2023)4th199320131 (2007, 2013)3rd198719971 (1997)1stDebut2025 CONCACAF U-17 World Cup qualification1stDebut6th200720171 (2013)4th201120232 (2011)19th198520235 (1999)9th198720233 (eight times)11th198520171 (four times)3rd200720191 (2007, 2019)16th198520238 (2005, 2011)2025 South American U-17 Championship19th19852023156th199320191 (1993)7th198920171 (2003, 2009)3rd201320232 (2023)16th198520233 (1991, 1995, 2003)6th199920191 (1999, 2019)3rd198519871 (1985, 1987)2024 OFC U-16 Men's Championship1stDebut11th1997202393rd201720232 (2017, 2023)2025 UEFA U-17 Euro qualification3rd200720151 (2015)6th200720232 (2017)3rd199720131 (1997, 2013)4th200120151 (2015)3rd199320111 (1993)9th198720235 (2001)12th198520232 (2023)9th198520191 (1987)4th198920031 (1989)1stDebut2nd20091 (2009)
Squads
Seeding The 48 teams were drawn into twelve groups of four teams. The hosts Qatar were automatically seeded to Pot 1 and into the first position of Group A, while the remaining teams were seeded into pots based on their results in the last five FIFA U-17 World Cups (with more recent tournaments weighted more heavily, using a points-based ranking system as outlined by FIFA).
PotTeamConfederation20132015201720192023TotalpointsPoints(20%)Points(40%)Points(60%)Points(80%)Points(100%)1 (H)AFCHost nation, automatically assigned to Pot 1CONMEBOL2.63.610.816.8942.8UEFA45.414.41740.8CAF6.47.21528.6UEFA2.45.41724.8CONCACAF2.65.21.28.8421.8CONMEBOL2.605.61321.2UEFA0.811.4618.2AFC1.835.6616.4CONMEBOL1.25.4814.6CONCACAF0.45.40.8612.6CAF4.8711.82AFC2.87.2010CAF1.478.4AFC1.478.4UEFA1.27.28.4UEFA5.25.2OFC01.60.62.404.6CONMEBOL1.60.62.44.6CONMEBOL044UEFA0.63.23.8CONMEBOL3.63.6CONCACAF1.401.83.2CAF333CONCACAF20.62.6AFC2.42.4CONCACAF022AFC22AFC1.601.6CAF1.41.4CAF1.21.2OFC0.600.6CONCACAF0.400.4CAF0.40.4UEFA0.20.2CONCACAF004AFC00UEFA0UEFA0UEFA0UEFA0CAF0CAF0CAF0CONMEBOL0AFC0CONCACAF0OFC0
Draw The draw took place on 25 May 2025 in Doha, Qatar. The draw began with teams from pot one being drawn first and placed in the first position of their groups (hosts Qatar automatically assigned to A1). The draw then proceeded with teams from pot 2, followed by pot 3 and pot 4, with each team drawn into one of the positions within their group. No group could contain more than one team from the same confederation.
Match officials On 21 August 2025, FIFA confirmed that 81 match officials from 35 member associations would be selected for the tournament. This included 27 referees and 54 assistant referees. Football video support was in use for the competition.
ConfederationRefereeAssistant refereesAFC Faisal Al-Balawi Faisal Al-Qahtani Ibrahim Al-Dakhil Mohammed Al-Shammari Khaled Khalaf Faisal Al-Shammari Choi Hyun-jai Bang Gi-yeol Cheon Jin-hee Hiroki Kasahara Takeshi Asada Satoshi Michiyama Rustam Lutfullin Sanjar Shayusupov Akmal GiyosovCAF Jelly Chavani Sirak Samuel Mengis Hamdani Ally Hamza El Fariq Hamza Naciri Ahmed Dhouioui Tanguy Mebiame Salim Alao Amos Abeigne Ndong Abdou Mefire Eleyeh Robleh Dirir Joel DoeCONCACAF Adonis Carrasco José Bare Milano Lendy Taveras Filip Dujic Stefan Tanaka-Freundt Gerard-Kader Lebuis Steven Madrigal Jeriel Valverde Luis Granados Kwinsi Williams Ainsley Rochard Kirt CharlesCONMEBOL Yender Herrera Antoni García Erizon Nieto Ivo Méndez Jesús Antelo William Medina Derlis López Roberto Cañete Eduardo Britos Paulo Zanovelli Nailton Sousa Luanderson Lima Roberto Pérez Leonar Soto José Castillo Fernando Véjar Juan Serrano Carlos PobleteOFC Ben Aukwai Malaetala Salanoa Garet SheehanUEFA Marian Barbu Mircea Grigoriu George Neacsu Andrea Colombo Giorgio Peretti Giuseppe Perrotti Oleksii Derevinskyi Oleksii Myronov Viktor Mathias Vasileios Fotias Andreas Meintanas Michail Papadakis Rohit Saggi Anders Dale Jorgen Valstadsve Sander van der Eijk Rens Bluemink Stefan de Groot Jasper Vergoote Michele Seeldraeyers Martijn Tiesters
Group stage
Tiebreakers Tie-breaking criteria for group playThe ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows: Points obtained in all group matches (three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a defeat); Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question; Goal difference in the matches played between the teams in question; Number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question; Goal difference in all group matches; Number of goals scored in all group matches; Fair play points in all group matches (only one deduction could be applied to a player in a single match): Drawing of lots.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
Group I
Group J
Group K
Group L
Ranking of third-placed teams