SINGAPORE – Four years ago, the inaugural JSSL International 7s kicked off at the Padang with 80 teams from eight countries.

Since then, the tournament has evolved into the region’s largest youth football event, with 260 teams from 14 nations set to battle it out in its fifth edition in six weeks’ time.

For the first time, the April 29 to May 1 tournament will feature the professional academies of English side Fulham FC, Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon, Malaysian team Penang FA, Thai outfit Bangkok United and Australia’s Perth Glory. They will compete in the Professional Academies 7s tournament, together with a Singaporean side from JSSL FC and the top two finishers of the U-16 category from the main event.

The latest addition is part of local football academy JSSL Singapore’s plans to expand the popular tournament beyond Asia, with plans to attract more European youth teams in the future.

Speaking to TODAY on the sidelines of the tournament launch at multi-sports facility The Arena yesterday, JSSL Singapore managing director Harvey Davis said the goal is to increase the number of professional academies to 10 next year, alongside 350 for the International 7s.

In three years’ time, Davis hopes to grow that number to 15 and 500 respectively, and is hopeful the tournament can eventually be staged at the 55,000-seater National Stadium.

“We want to make Singapore a youth football destination with teams from not just around the region (as is the current case) but also Europe, so it becomes a four- to five-day event,” he said. “Ultimately, that will end with the finals at the National Stadium, with 15,000 spectators. That’s our goal three, four years down the road.”

For now, JSSL is focused on building on the success of its flagship tournament, which will be boosted this year by the star power of former England internationals Emile Heskey and Paul Parker, who have been roped in as guest-of-honour and ambassador respectively.

Davis added: “Some tournaments try to expand too quick, too fast and they don’t have the fundamentals right. One big thing about these tournaments is communication about fixtures, results and schedules.

“We introduced a (phone) application last year, where the instance your game is finished, you can find out where you rank in the table and what time your next game is. The biggest thing we did last year was that we added venues — we had the Padang as our main one and two others, and we shuttled teams to different venues.”

They have also welcomed four sponsors including Turkish Airlines and Maybank, while the Singapore Tourism Board will support JSSL in marketing and running the event for the first time.

Youth teams will compete in a seven-a-side format, with categories from Under-9 through Under-16 for boys and Under-12, Under-14 and Under-16 for girls. The tournament will be staged across five venues, with the finals to be played at the Padang.

In a bid to boost local football, Centre of Excellence teams from the six S.League clubs will also be given free entry to the U-16 competition, where they will test their mettle against the private academies.