Organising a football tournament in 9 steps

Organ­is­ing a foot­ball tour­na­ment can be a great way to sup­port a cause, hold a com­pa­ny event or sim­ply gen­er­ate income for an asso­ci­a­tion. It is also a fun expe­ri­ence, with a good atmos­phere and brings peo­ple togeth­er around a shared pas­sion: sport. As for any event, the organ­i­sa­tion of your tour­na­ment has to be struc­tured and well-planned in advance so that noth­ing slips through the cracks.

Do you want to organ­ise a foot­ball tour­na­ment but don’t know where to start? We give you a hand:

1. Define the goals of your tournament

It is essen­tial to define in advance the goals and rai­son d’être of your foot­ball tour­na­ment.

Here are some (non-exhaus­tive) ques­tions to ask your­self:

• How many peo­ple and teams will par­tic­i­pate?
• Who is the tar­get audi­ence?
• Is it a pri­vate tour­na­ment for employ­ees of your com­pa­ny?
• Is it a tour­na­ment for your asso­ci­a­tion?
• What will be the prizes for the win­ners?
• Is par­tic­i­pa­tion in the event free of charge or paid?
• Will the tour­na­ment last a whole day?
• How will the match­es be organ­ised (groups, a round of 16…)?
• How can par­tic­i­pants reg­is­ter for the tour­na­ment?

2. Prepare a detailed budget estimate

The bud­get is also an essen­tial ele­ment for the organ­i­sa­tion of your tour­na­ment. As it is sub­ject to change and you won’t know the total costs and rev­enues with cer­tain­ty until the end, it is essen­tial to make sev­er­al detailed esti­mates. Your bud­get must be set based on your cho­sen goals, as men­tioned at the begin­ning of the arti­cle (par­tic­i­pants, spon­sor­ships…).

You can use a reg­is­tra­tion plat­form to man­age the list of par­tic­i­pants bet­ter and a CRM tool to send infor­ma­tion to tour­na­ment par­tic­i­pants.

3. Choose a date

The next essen­tial ele­ment before choos­ing the venue is the choice of the date of the tour­na­ment.

To this end, the par­tic­i­pants’ agen­da must be con­sid­ered so that as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble can attend. You can pro­pose sev­er­al dates through a sur­vey and see which suits every­one’s avail­abil­i­ty best.

You will also have to define the dura­tion of the event, depend­ing on the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants and the num­ber of play­ing pitch­es avail­able.

4. Find a suitable venue

The choice of venue can be dif­fi­cult, espe­cial­ly giv­en the lim­it­ed num­ber of foot­ball pitch­es avail­able.

You must often con­tact the local foot­ball clubs to ask if the pitch is avail­able on your cho­sen date. The choice of venue will vary great­ly depend­ing on the max­i­mum bud­get you have set.

The first thing to remem­ber is that what­ev­er time of year, the weath­er can be bad, even in sum­mer. There­fore, get­ting a venue with shel­tered stands for the pub­lic is prefer­able. Think also about details such as chang­ing rooms, to pro­vide par­tic­i­pants with every­thing they need, in the best pos­si­ble con­di­tions.

5. Entertain the crowd and teams that are not playing

Organ­is­ing enter­tain­ment activ­i­ties, such as a raf­fle, a jug­gling con­test, a penal­ty shoot-out, etc., is essen­tial for chil­dren and adults.

In fact, dur­ing some teams’ breaks or rest peri­ods, it is impor­tant to offer a fun activ­i­ty that dis­tracts and cre­ates a relaxed atmos­phere.

6. Estimate staff costs

Dur­ing a foot­ball tour­na­ment, ref­er­ees, secu­ri­ty staff, clean­ing staff, match organ­is­ers, etc., are need­ed.

To find out what local sup­pli­ers charge, do some research in advance and include these costs in your bud­get.

Con­sid­er find­ing vol­un­teers to lend a hand for tasks such as ref­er­ee­ing, clean­ing up or direct­ing the crowd. This type of event tends to be very pop­u­lar with old­er peo­ple and the peo­ple from the town or city where it is held.

7. Seek sponsors

Spon­sors can help you cov­er a large part of the costs and pro­vide you with some of the equip­ment, such as t‑shirts, balls and much more.

If the tour­na­ment is a cor­po­rate event, you could also col­lab­o­rate with a spon­sor or client. This allows you to reduce costs and strength­en your rela­tion­ship with your cus­tomer or part­ner.

Final­ly, get­ting a spon­sor will allow you to make your foot­ball tour­na­ment bet­ter known, tak­ing advan­tage of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion on your social net­works and theirs. Asso­ci­at­ing your event with a well-known name will attract more par­tic­i­pants.

8. Manage online registrations

Once all these ele­ments have been defined, it is essen­tial that par­tic­i­pants can eas­i­ly reg­is­ter for your tour­na­ment, even remote­ly.

There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to open reg­is­tra­tions weeks or even months in advance to plan the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants in your tour­na­ment as well as pos­si­ble. Online reg­is­tra­tion is the best option, as it is more con­ve­nient and acces­si­ble, whether your com­pe­ti­tion is paid or com­plete­ly free.

9. Find out about local regulations

Organ­is­ing a foot­ball tour­na­ment may involve spe­cif­ic require­ments in terms of local reg­u­la­tions and local coun­cil per­mis­sions.

There­fore, it is essen­tial to prompt­ly define what per­mits, doc­u­men­ta­tion and appli­ca­tions you need to organ­ise your com­pe­ti­tion. Final­ly, some coun­cils may offer spe­cif­ic help for this type of event.

Do you want to organ­ise your foot­ball tour­na­ment eas­i­ly? Weezevent helps you with its solu­tions for online reg­is­tra­tion, access con­trol, cash­less pay­ment, and CRM tools that are easy to use and imple­ment to make your tour­na­ment a real suc­cess!

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