Training and capacity development

On 11 and 12 April, the UEFA Child and Youth Protection Workshop took place at the Brdo Congress Centre in Slovenia. The event served as a unique opportunity for national football associations in Europe, represented by Child and Youth Protection Officers and Football Sustainability Managers, to share their progress in this field and learn from each other and invited experts.

On World Children’s Day, 20 November 2023, UEFA published its Competition-specific Child and Youth Protection Guidelines.

On the occasion of International Children’s Day, marked on 1 June, the Lithuanian version of UEFA’s child safeguarding courses, prepared by the Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF), have been launched.

On 9 February 2023, the Albanian Football Association (AFA) and Terre des hommes Albania (Tdh) signed a cooperation agreement in the field of child protection in football, in line with UEFA's initiative to develop national child protection policies for each of its 55 members. The agreement comes as a continuation of the previous collaboration to improve the quality of child protection in football, including Tdh's contribution to the drafting of two important documents of the AFA: the child protection policy in football and the code of ethics.

In December 2022, the Albanian Football Association (AFA) in partnership with Terre des hommes Albania organised a training session on “Child Safeguarding in Football”. Since a long time, the AFA has been committed to developing and implementing its policies for the protection and preservation of the safety of children in football, also based on the guidelines of UEFA and FIFA.

The Ukrainian Association of Football continues to work on raising the awareness of people working with children's protection in football. Thus, the relevant module is included in the UAF "Diploma D" and UEFA "Diploma C" educational programs.

The first UEFA Child and Youth Protection Summit took place on 17-18 November in Tubize (Belgium), at the Royal Belgian Football Association's (RBFA) new headquarters. Forty-nine UEFA member association’s child and youth protection officers were joined by keynote speakers of the European Commission and the Council of Europe, as well as leading researchers and experts in child and youth protection.

The Gibraltar Football Association, in collaboration with the English Football Association, has produced a series of documents to assist all its stakeholders in developing safeguarding policies, sending the clear message that safeguarding is everyone's responsibility! The Child safeguarding toolkit for UEFA member associations served as guidance in this process.