Manchester United Premier Cup
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The Manchester United Premier Cup is a global youth football tournament for players under the age of 15. The tournament was established by Nike in 1993 as the Nike Premier Cup and featured 624 teams from 15 European countries. The following year, the tournament expanded into the Asian continent, increasing the number of teams to 1,067, before adding a further 300 teams from the Latin American region in 1995.
In 1996, the tournament was reorganised to include a World Finals stage following the regional tournaments. The regional tournaments served to whittle down the competing teams from over 2,500 to just 12 for the finals tournament in Cape Town, South Africa. This structure was followed from 1996 to 2001, when it was decided that the host team and the national champions from 13 countries would be given direct qualification to the finals tournament, with the remaining six places in the 20-team tournament given to the teams from the Europe, Middle East, Latin America, South East Asia and Africa regions.
In 2003, to coincide with Nike replacing Umbro as kit sponsors of Manchester United, the tournament was rebranded as the Manchester United Premier Cup.
