Grassroots Week is underway

For years, the European football's governing body has devoted a great deal of effort to promoting Grassroots football, or football which is purely for the purposes of leisure. Grassroots includes football for children, schoolchildren, amateurs, the disadvantaged, veterans, the disabled and also includes futsal, beach football and women's soccer. The essence of Grassroots is to enhance the love of football, to build communities and to enjoy the fun of playing in a team. For years, the Hungarian Football Federation (MLSZ) has considered Grassroots to be a strategic sector and has constantly increased the number of people involved in recreational football and developed the related infrastructure.

Every year until 2015, International Grassroots Day was held in the spring, but it transformed in 2016 into Grassroots Week and, in connection with the European Sports Week organised by the European Commission, moved from spring to September.

During the Grassroots Week, national football federations across Europe organise leisure football activities and, this time, UEFA is holding a major event in Ljubljana on Tuesday, where children from five countries, including Hungarian children, will play football all day on the city square. Meanwhile, MLSZ will organise the OTP Bank Bozsik Programme year-opening festival, which will be the most important event associated with UEFA's initiative this week. At the festival in Telki, the three largest branches of Hungarian Grassroots football will be introduced; the institutional and club-related parts of the OTP Bank Bozsik programme, as well as the Fair Play Cup for high-school students.