Victor Bannikov's tournament: annual international competition is scheduled for the end of August

16.03.2021 15:30

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

At the end of the summer, the youth national team of Ukraine U-16 (at that time already U-17 - players not older than 2005 born) plan to take part in the Viktor Bannikov Tournament.

If there is no change, given the epidemiological situation in the world and the decisions of the relevant bodies of UEFA and UAF, the traditional, 17th international tournament under the auspices of the UAF in memory of the first president of the National Football Federation Viktor Bannikov will take place from 25 to August 31, 2021. Its participants will be the youth national teams of Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Turkey, Finland and Slovakia. We will add that for Oleg Kuznetsov's team the tournament will become one of stages of preparation for qualifying round of Euro-2022 (U-17), which will take place in Portugal in November.

Winners of the Viktor Bannikov Tournament

The first winner of the Bannikov Tournament in 2002 was the national team of Poland. But most often - six times (2003, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2018) - Ukrainians won the competition. Four more times the strongest team was the national team of Turkey (2004, 2007, 2013, 2019), twice - the team of Georgia (2016, 2017). The Italians (2008), the Serbs (2009) and the Czechs (2010) triumphed once. The tournament was not held three times: in 2014 and 2015 - due to the unstable situation in Ukraine, in 2020 - due to a pandemic and quarantine.

Viktor Bannikov (1938-2001)

Honored Master of Sports. He became famous as a goalkeeper, five times was included in the list of 33 best football players of the USSR. Multiple champion and winner of the USSR Cup as a member of Dynamo Kyiv. Member of the symbolic "Lev Yashin Club" - 138 matches without conceded goals. He was a member of the USSR national team. Bronze medalist of the 1966 World Cup, silver medalist of Euro-1972. Honored Coach of Ukraine and the USSR, Honored Worker of Physical Culture and Sports of Ukraine. In 1991-1996 he headed the Football Federation of Ukraine. He was awarded the UEFA Order of Merit, FIFA and UEFA Gold Medals.