2021 UEFA European Under-17 Championship


The 2021 UEFA European Under-17 Championship was originally to be held as the 19th edition of the UEFA European Under-17 Championship, the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-17 national teams of Europe. The tournament should have been held in Cyprus between 6 and 22 May 2021. A total of 16 teams were scheduled to play in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2004 eligible to participate.
The Netherlands were the two-time defending champions, having won the last two tournaments held in 2018 and 2019, with the 2020 edition cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.
On 18 December 2020, the UEFA Executive Committee announced that the tournament was cancelled after consultation with all 55 member associations due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.

Host selection

The timeline of host selection was as follows:
  • 11 January 2019: bidding procedure launched
  • 28 February 2019: deadline to express interest
  • 27 March 2019: Announcement by UEFA that declaration of interest were received from 17 member associations to host one of the UEFA national team youth final tournaments in 2021 and 2022
  • 28 June 2019: Submission of bid dossiers
  • 24 September 2019: Selection of successful host associations by the UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Ljubljana
For the UEFA European Under-17 Championship final tournaments of 2021 and 2022, Cyprus and Israel were selected as hosts respectively.

Qualification

All 55 UEFA nations entered the competition, and with the hosts Cyprus qualifying automatically, the original format would have seen the other 54 teams competing in the qualifying competition, which would have consisted of two rounds: Qualifying round, which would have taken place in autumn 2020, and Elite round, which would have also taken place in spring 2021, to determine the remaining 15 spots in the final tournament. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, UEFA announced on 13 August 2020 that after consultation with the 55 member associations, the qualifying round was delayed to March 2021, and the elite round was abolished, with the 13 qualifying round group winners and the top two seeds by coefficient ranking, Netherlands and Spain qualifying for the final tournament.

Qualified teams

The following teams qualified for the final tournament.
Note: All appearance statistics include only U-17 era.
TeamMethod of qualificationAppearanceLast appearancePrevious best performance
1st—
14th2019
14th2019
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A