The 2025 South American U-17 Championship will be the 20th edition of the South American U-17 Championship (Spanish: CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-17, Portuguese: CONMEBOL Sul-Americano Sub-17), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-17 national teams of South America. It will be held in Colombia from 27 March to 12 April 2025.[1][2]
The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Venezuela between 4–20 April 2024,[3][4] before CONMEBOL decided to move it to Colombia due to Venezuela becoming the host of the 2025 South American U-20 Championship.[1]
Starting from this edition, the tournament will be played every year in line with the annual cycle implemented by FIFA for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.[5]
As a result of the expansion of the FIFA U-17 World Cup format, seven teams will qualify for the U-17 World Cup from this edition onwards, an increase of three berths from the four CONMEBOL teams that previously qualified.[6] The top 7 teams will qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the CONMEBOL representatives.[7]
After three years of evaluation and analysis of the proposal submitted in 2021,[8] FIFA announced on 14 March 2024 that its U-17 World Cup would be expanded to 48 teams and would be held annually from 2025, with Qatar being awarded the hosting rights for the next five tournaments.[6] Consequently, CONMEBOL had to modify the format of the South American U-17 Championship to define the 7 places it was awarded in the new slot allocation of the U-17 World Cup. The new format of the South American U-17 Championship is as follows:[5]
The group stage remains unchanged, with the ten teams being divided into two groups of five teams each. Both groups are played on a single round-robin basis.
The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Winners of semi-finals advance to the final to determine the champions while losers play the third place match.
Teams placed third and fourth in each group will play for the 5th to 8th places, with the third placed teams playing the fourth placed teams in two semi-finals. The winners of the semi-finals play for fifth place and qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup while the losers play for seventh place, with the winner being the last team to qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World.
Teams placed fifth in the group stage will be eliminated.
Venezuela was originally announced as host country for the tournament by the CONMEBOL President Alejandro Domínguez during a CONMEBOL Council meeting held on 10 April 2024.[3][9]
However, on 15 November 2024, CONMEBOL announced some changes to its competition calendar for 2025 in a letter sent to its member associations, moving the South American U-17 Championship to Colombia to replace Venezuela,[1][2] which went on to host the 2025 South American U-20 Championship after CONMEBOL withdrew Peru's hosting rights of this tournament.[10]
Each team could register a squad of a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 23 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2010 (ages 15 to 17) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).[7]
The draw of the tournament will be held on 19 December 2024, 14:15 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.[11] The ten teams will be drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Colombia and defending champions Brazil were seeded into Group A and Group B respectively and assigned to position 1 in their group, while the remaining teams were placed into four "pairing pots" according to their results in the 2023 South American U-17 Championship (shown in brackets).[11]
From each pot, the first team drawn was placed into Group A and the second team drawn was placed into Group B. In both groups, teams from pot 1 were allocated in position 2, teams from pot 2 in position 3, teams from pot 3 in position 4 and teams from pot 4 in position 5.[12]
The top three teams in each group will advance to the final stage.
Tiebreakers
In the group stage, teams were ranked according to points earned (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order (Regulations Article 20):[7]
Head-to-head result between tied teams;
Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Fewest red cards received;
Fewest yellow cards received;
Drawing of lots.
All match times are local times, COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.
The final stage will be played on a single-elimination basis and consists of the 5th–8th play-offs matches, semi-finals, third place match and final. If a match was level at the end of normal playing time, the winner would be decided directly by a penalty shoot-out (no extra time will be played).[7]
All match times are local times, COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil (holders)
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela (hosts)