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All Russian Football Tournament for Orphan schools exists for four years. Every year about 1 000 orphan children take part in the Tournament.

Football is one of the most popular and widely available sports, so every child can play it. We hold this tournament to awake children’s interest in playing football. The children know the Tournament is, know, that the finals will be held in Moscow and that makes them train hard and do all their best to take part in it.

The Fund, in its turn, gets famous sportsmen,  football players to work with the children, show masterclasses in order to give socially unprotected children an incentive. Besides,  such games help to find most gifted children.

The beginning of the Tournament.

The first Tournament was held in the city of Volgograd in 2003 in the sports center of “Rotor” club in June 17-19. It was held under the patronage of the President’s plenipotentiary in the South Federal district and with the support of Federal Agency for Physical Culture and Sports and the Football Union of Russia.

11 teams of orphan children from different cities and regions of the South Federal district took part in the Tournament. Many famous football players of the XX century came to meet the young players, among them Rinat Dasaev, Valery Gladilin, Georgy Yartsev. They held a training and a masterclass.

THE TOURNAMENT TODAY

Today children aged from 13 to 14 from all the regions of Russia take part in the Tournament. Elimination matches are held in Federal districts where the young sportsmen compete for the first place that gives them a chance to take part in the finals in Moscow.

The first qualifying match of the All Russian Football Tournament for Orphan schools was held from May till September 2007. It started in the Southern Federal district in the city of Rostov-on-Don. 12 teams, including the team of Chechen Republic and the Republic of Dagestan took part the tournament. The winner was the team of the city of Shakhty, Rostov region.    

The tournament in the city of Kazan in the Volga Federal district that gathered 11 teams was dated for the International Children's Day. The organizers made a great sport holiday during which the players not just competed but also saw a concert, went to a water park and were taken on an excursion about the famous historic places of the city of Kazan.

At the end of summer the Tournament of the Central Federal district gathered 14 teams. The winner was the team of Bryansk region. In September the games were held in two regions – Siberian Federal district (the city of Bertsk, Novosibirsk region) and Ural federal district (the city of Ekaterinburg). In Ekaterinburg the children also took part in the tournament “Kross of the Nation”.

During all the tournaments famous football players gave masterclasses, among them some players of FC “Rubin” (Kazan), FC “Sibir” (Novosibirsk), Andrej Oyatnitski, Dmitri Ananko, Vagiz Hadiyatullin.

The team of St. Petersburg was invited to take part in the finals of the All Russian Football Tournament for Orphan schools. This team won the II Football Tournament for Orphan schools of St. Petersburg and North-Eastern region for the cup “The future depends on you”.

The Moscow Department of Education held a separate tournament for orphan children of Moscow. As a result best teams were defined and the winner was invited to take part in the finals of the All Russian Football Tournament for Orphan schools.

The regions which are a part of Far Eastern Federal District are far apart from each other.  That’s why it is difficult for teams to arrive to participate in the competition by the most accessible means of transport - train. The sending parties, unfortunately, do not have financial opportunity to buy their sportsmen tickets for airplane. For this reason we couldn’t hold the tournament in Far Eastern Federal District this year. But we did not wish to prevent these children from taking part in a holiday and decided to invite one of the best mini-football team among orphan children - a team of children's home of Khabarovsk Krai.

This year for the first time, under numerous requests from trainers of children's homes, Fund organize mini-football tournament for orphan girls. The girls from Moscow, Moscow region, Tver region and Krasnodar Krai became the first participants of this competition.  We hope that this experience will be successful and will turn into tradition.