WFFA NextGen World Championship 2024

	To sign up, fill in the official registration form on GameDay
	Find all the official results of the competition on Tournify

Awesome news for the next generation of freestylers from all around the world: one of the WFFA’s most important tournaments, the World Youth Freestyle Football Championship, is back in 2024 with a brand-new naming and image: enter the WFFA NextGen World Championship!

This year’s competition will take place on a fully digital basis between the months of October and December. In order to offer the best and easiest experience to the athletes, the tournament will utilise the official platforms of the WFFA (namely GameDay for registrations and Tournify for results), as well as Whatsapp. 

Following the tradition, the 2024 edition of the NextGen Championship event will culminate in a live final that will be broadcast on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook: the best male and female u16 freestylers in the world will be crowned champions!

Remember: to participate in the Youth Championship, you must be 15 years of age or younger on the date in which registrations close. See below for more information!

Registration

Registrations for the 2024 WFFA NextGen World Championship cost 5€ and will be open between October 9th and November 9th. All freestylers are asked to sign up using the corresponding GameDay widget; however, if a freestyler is not able to pay via credit card or PayPal, they are kindly asked to send an email to next.gen@thewffa.org and the team will get back to them with alternatives.

Important: no new signups will be accepted after November 9th, so make sure to register on time!

To sign up, follow this process:

1. Go to the GameDay page of the event and follow the registration process, including the uploading of the corresponding Parental Form at the end
2. When your form is approved, you will receive a Whatsapp message and you will be able to send the qualification video
3. The team of judges will select the best 64 videos (32 for boys and 32 for girls) and rank them to progress onto the Circles stage of the competition

Do not forget that in order to participate you will need to be 15 years of age or younger when registrations close on November 9th, 2024.

Competition structure

This year, the WFFA NextGen World Championship will follow this timeline:

• October 9th to November 9th: Registration period. Signing up for the event costs 5€; if a freestyler is not able to pay with credit card or PayPal, they just need to send an email to next.gen@thewffa.org and the team will offer them an alternative. No registrations will be accepted after November 9th at 23:59h CET
• November 12th to November 19th: Qualification stage. Freestylers will be asked to send their qualification videos between those dates. No videos will be accepted after November 19th at 23:59h CET
• November 22nd to November 29th: Top32 stage in Circles format, all happening via Whatsapp. No videos will be accepted after their respective deadlines; if a freestyler sends fewer than the regular 3 videos (one per round), he or she will be disqualified
• December 2nd to December 16th: Top 16 and Top 8 in 1×1 Battles format, all happening via Whatsapp. No videos will be accepted after their respective deadlines; if a freestyler sends fewer than the regular 3 videos (one per round), he or she will be disqualified
• December 22nd: Grand Finals (Semifinals, Bronze Battles, Finals) happening on a live event; participants will get all information beforehand so they can prepare accordingly

Format

In the qualification stage, freestylers will be asked to send a video for the judges to rank it. The resulting clips will be evaluated by the judges, who will give them scores on a scale from 1 to 10. These marks will be added up, and the participants will then be ranked according to their total score. In case of a score draw between two freestylers, the Head of Judging will intervene and use his quality vote to break the tie.

Once the qualification videos have been thoroughly evaluated, Circles will then be created according to the aforementioned ranking from the qualification stage and following the usual seeding procedure: the freestyler ranked first will be placed in a group with the last, the second with the second last, and so on.

In the Circles, the judges will evaluate and score each of the three videos sent by the participants on a scale of 1 to 10. The best freestylers will progress onto the next stage; the general ranking coming from these Circles (that is, the total amount of points earned by each freestyler, accumulating the points earned by each of their three videos) will be used to determine the battles in the Top16. In case of a score draw between two freestylers, their marks in the Qualification stage will be used to break the tie. If a freestyler doesn’t send their videos on time, he or she will be disqualified.

Once the Circles are complete, the Top 16 and Top 8 stages will take place. They will happen on a fully online basis, with the Tournament Manager contacting the athletes to request their videos. Just like in previous stages, any freestyler who doesn’t send their clips on time will be disqualified.

Last but not least, the best 8 freestylers (4 girls and 4 boys) will make it to the Grand Finals, happening in a live event which will be broadcast on the official channels of the WFFA.

Rules

The 2024 edition of the WFFA NextGen Championship will use the Official Rules of Freestyle Football for its battles. Any specific rules and regulations affecting the competition will be published on the corresponding page of the WFFA website.

Judges

The team of judges for this year’s edition of the WFFA NextGen Championship will be announced on the official channels of the WFFA: stay tuned to discover who will evaluate the skills of the participants!

Prizes

This year’s edition of the WFFA NextGen Championship will reward not just the male and female champions of its 1×1 Battles competition, but also offer awards to two extra categories in a similar fashion as in past editions. More information will be released on the official channels of the WFFA!

Participant list

For more information, send us an email at next.gen@thewffa.org or a DM to our official Instagram account at @thewffa!

Stay tuned to the official channels of the WFFA to follow the latest updates!