2025 - a successful year for European youth go

The year 2025 will remain unique for the number of opportunities for young European players. After a very nice 30th European Youth Go Championships held  in Vatra Dornei, Romania, March 6-8, 2025, a large number of European youth players were invited to the 40th World Youth Goe Championships held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 25-28, 2025. The 20th edition of Korea Prime Minister Cup added a Youth Division for the first time: 28 young players were invited to Taebaek, November 7-14, 2025. The World PairGo Championships were held in Osaka, August 8-10, 2025, included the The World Junior PairGo Championships U-15 for the first time.
Youth team events continued successfuly as well: Season Two of Pandanet Youth Go European Championships was the qualification for the 3rd "Quzhou Lanke Cup" International Children Friendly Weiqi Championship. European Go Federation got invitations for 4 teams: according to the PYGETC rules, Croatia and U.K. qualified from the League A, and two additional teams were Czechia (winner of the League B) and the "EGF team" based on the results of special qualification tournament held during the 67th GoDan European Go Congress in Warsaw, Poland. 

Changes in the qualification criteria for world youth events

At the same time, the Ing Foundation decided that there will be no World Youth Goe Championships in 2026, starting WYGC as a bi-annual event. The World Youth Team event in China is played on three boards and live continental qualification events are sponsored by organizers from China. Therefore, it was not possible to continue with the Pandanet Youth Team Championships (played online on five boards and generously co-sponsored by Japanese-owned Pandanet) as the qualification tournament.

Taking all these facts into the account, the Executive Committee of the European Go Federation (commonly known as the "EGF Board") carefully prepared and timely published the updated qualification criteria for both individual and team world youth events. The detailed PDF document is available on the EGF webpage: EGF Rules and Guidelines.

The most important novelties are:

• There will be three age groups in the EYGC: U12, U16 and U20.
• Results fro; two EYGC (2026 and 2027) will be combined to determine the eligible candidates for WYGC 2027. 
• Results of the 1st EGF Youth Teams Cup (please note it is an U18 event), to be held immediately after EYGC 2026, shall determine the list of national teams who qualify for the World Youth Teams Championships (under the condition that the organizer send the same number of invitations to EGF).

Upcoming EYGC in Croatia

The webpage of the 31st European Youth Go Championships is continously updated with more information, especially with lists of registered participants of three age groups: U12, U16 and U20. 

The wonderful venue and great playing conditions are going to attract hundreds of young players, parents and coaches. Reserve your seat (Registration Forms) and your room timely, since the end of January 2026 is the deadline for early birds registration fee and for hotel reservations. The registration form for national youth teams will be announced as a separate news item very soon. Traditionally, the EYGC is more than just a youth tournament: PairGo, game reviews and workshops will make this event memorable. Many games will be broadcast online with commentary on the Twitch Channel of the European Go Federation.