Draft:The League of Future Champions

The League of Future Champions is a competition for the youngest football players on the territory of Serbia, which has existed since 1996.

The aim of the league is to contribute to the proper psycho-physical development of children, to get to know all the benefits of sport, to learn what fair play is, to socialize and to help them find the right life, sport and other important values for life.

League and competition system
Girls and boys born between 2011 and 2016 participate in this league season. Nearly 1000 teams from 12 Serbian cities and teams from 60 leagues with over 10,000 participants take part in this competition.

More and more football clubs and football schools from the territory of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Sombor, Zrenjanin, Ruma, Kragujevac, Mladenovac, Užice, Zlatibor, Novi Pazar and Kosovo and Metohija are joining the system of the League of Future Champions.

The league is played on indoor football fields. Each team consists of a total of 15 players, and the 2014, 2015 and 2016 generations have six players on the pitch (including a goalkeeper), while the 2011, 2012 and 2013 generations have seven players each (and a goalkeeper) on the field. The teams are divided into different groups based on age, and the matches in the group are played according to the "each against each" system.

The best teams in the group phase take part in the elimination phase of this competition, which culminates in the national final of the League of Future Champions, which usually takes place every year in May at the Čajetina Cultural and Sports Centre in Zlatibor.

After two days of competition, on which more than ten matches can be played simultaneously, the champions in all age groups are determined. The matches consist of two 15-minute halves for all generations, and the break between halves lasts no longer than five minutes.

History
The TV SOS channel founded the League of Future Champions in 1996, and since then competitions have been held every year by football schools and youth football clubs from the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Team sports are very popular in Serbia, so the football competition is well received in schools and clubs. Originally, the league was also supposed to organise primary school competitions in other sports, but due to the complicated process of organization, it was decided that football would be the main and only sports discipline.

This concept of the League of Future Champions first came to life in the Belgrade football bubbles, and the growth of popularity made the competition spread throughout Serbia. Coordinators from many cities wanted the League to come to life in their place, so in 2017 new centers of the League of Future Champions were established in Sombor (Bačka district), Novi Sad (South Bačka) and Zrenjanin (Northern Banat). The League experienced success in new centers as well, and this led to the opening of centers for Šumadija district in Kragujevac and Mladenovac. Novi Pazar also hosted teams from the Raška district, and teams from the north of Kosovo also compete on these grounds. Since the first day, there have been centers for the teams of the Zlatibor district (headquarters in Užice and Čajetina), and in 2022, the teams from Vojvodina received a coordination center in Ruma.