Plan an entire youth football tournament in seconds
Enter your teams, age groups, pitches and tournament days. USEMATCHFLOW works out the competition format, a conflict-free fixture list down to pitch and kick-off time, referee assignments, a full budget with the break-even entry fee, and a printable tournament handbook.
What’s free: one division, up to 16 teams, PDF export with a watermark. More teams, multiple divisions or a watermark-free export need an unlock (from £25). Enter as many teams as you like — nothing you type is lost, but the free version computes the first 16 and says so rather than passing a 16-team plan off as yours.
Most schedulers stop at the fixture list.
USEMATCHFLOW also tells you whether the tournament breaks even.
Pitch hire, referee fees, medical cover, equipment, insurance and awards are part of the same plan as the fixtures — so the entry fee you quote is a number you can defend, not a guess.
What it handles
Format + fixtures
League, straight knockout, or groups followed by knockout. Automatic seeding, conflict-free scheduling across every pitch, and a cap on how many matches each team plays per day.
Real-world constraints
Minimum rest between matches. Per-pitch opening hours, split morning/afternoon windows, pitches closed on a given day. Teams that can only arrive after lunch. U10s on small pitches, U16s on full size.
Referees as a resource
Drop in your referee list and every match gets covered with no overlaps — and no referee ever officiates their own club. Each referee gets a personal duty sheet.
Budget + break-even
Pitch hire, referee fees, staff, medical cover, equipment, insurance and awards, line by line. Then the number that actually matters: what to charge per team so the tournament does not lose money.
What it does, and what it does not
One table, no hedging. A cross does not mean “coming soon” — it means it is not there today, and the note says what to use instead.
| Scheduling | ||
|---|---|---|
| Format & groups | Yes | Round robin, straight knockout, or groups plus tiered knockouts — chosen from teams and resources |
| Fixture placement | Yes | Down to date, kick-off time and pitch number |
| Hard constraints | Yes | Minimum rest, per-team daily caps, pitch occupancy, opening hours, stage barriers |
| Capacity verdict | Yes | You know before the invitations go out, and by how many fixtures it falls short |
| Drag a single match | No | You change the inputs and it recomputes. Fixture-by-fixture tweaking means editing the export yourself |
| Rescheduling engine | No | Lose a day and you re-run on the days left — a new plan, not a patch |
| Referees | ||
| Assignment | Yes | No overlaps, never their own club, balanced by appointments so far |
| Shortfall reporting | Yes | Tells you how many appointments short rather than leaving matches unstaffed |
| Paying referees | No | Their fees appear in the budget; disbursement and reconciliation do not |
| Money — the part most often misread | ||
| Cost model | Yes | Pitch hire, referees, staff, medical, kit, awards, insurance and contingency, itemised |
| Break-even entry fee | Yes | Total spend ÷ teams, with unit rates per market (CNY / EUR / GBP / USD), not converted |
| Collecting entry fees | No | No payment collection. Use your own payment provider or a registration platform |
| Bookkeeping & reconciliation | No | No ledger. Export the budget and take it into your own accounts |
| Sponsorship management | No | Net sponsorship can offset costs as an input; contracts and receipts are not tracked |
| Registration & match day | ||
| Online entry form | Yes | Teams fill in their own name, coach, manager, phone and squad (enabled per tournament) |
| Entry review | Yes | Organisers confirm or reject; teams check their own status |
| Live draw | Yes | Pulls in registered teams in one step (enabled per tournament) |
| Live scores & standings | No | No match-day scoring. Use a dedicated scoring tool for that |
| Spectator app | No | There is no app, and no spectator-side product |
| Output | ||
| Printable handbook | Yes | Groups, fixtures, referee duties, rules and squads — one PDF for teams and officials |
| Internal plan document | Yes | Includes the budget and P&L, kept separate from the handbook teams receive |
| Watermark-free export | No | The free version watermarks the PDF; removing it is a one-off unlock (£25 / €29 / $32 by market) |
This describes the current version. Nothing with a cross has a promised date — if it ships, it will appear in the changelog before it appears here.
Common questions
The questions organisers actually ask. Every figure below can be checked on this site — recompute it yourself if you disagree.
+Can 24 teams finish in two days?
Not on a tiered format where every team plays six or seven matches — eight pitches still leaves 24 fixtures unplaced. The bottleneck is not pitch count but the clock: 60 minutes minimum rest between a side's matches and at most three matches per team per day. To finish in two days you have to send half the field home after the group stage.
+How many pitches do I actually need?
On a tiered format running 9:00 to 17:00: 16 teams over two days need 7 pitches, 24 teams over three days need 6, and 32 teams over three days need 8. Above 20 teams, two days has no solution. Each figure is found by trying one pitch at a time until no fixture is left unplaced — not estimated.
+Is there a tool that plans pitches, referees and budget together?
Yes, but two things get conflated here. We do the money going out — pitch hire, referees, medical, insurance, awards, and the break-even entry fee. We do not do the money coming in: collecting entry fees and reconciling accounts need a separate tool.
+How do I produce a tournament handbook?
Enter teams, pitches, days and the event details, then export a printable PDF — groups, fixtures, referee duties, rules and squads are all in it. No retyping into Word or Canva. The free export carries a watermark.
+How do I set an entry fee that does not lose money?
Break-even is total spend ÷ paying teams, but that total has to be recomputed for your format rather than copied from someone else. Withdrawals are what actually sinks budgets: on 24 teams across 6 pitches for 3 days, four teams pulling out cuts the total by only £509 — pitch hire is 45% of it and is booked by the day — leaving you £1,699 short at the original fee.
+How free is free, and is there really no sign-up?
No account, no contact details. Free covers one division of up to 16 teams with a watermarked PDF export. Enter more teams and nothing you typed is lost, but the free version computes the first 16 and says so — it does not pass a 16-team plan off as yours. More teams, multiple divisions or a clean export is a one-off unlock: £25, €29 or $32 depending on your currency — priced per market, not converted from one another.
+Why trust these numbers?
They are arithmetic, not language-model output — the same inputs always give the same plan. The methodology page publishes the formulas so you can check by hand. Every deploy also runs an invariant check first: pitch clashes, rest between a side's matches, daily caps, stage dependencies and budget reconciliation. One failure blocks the release.
Deterministic, not AI-generated
Scheduling a tournament is not a creative task. You need the same answer twice, pitches that never double-book, and totals that add up when a parent asks. USEMATCHFLOW is plain arithmetic and explicit constraints: the same inputs always produce the same plan, and every figure can be traced back to the line that produced it.
Do it yourself (free)
Open the planner, fill in a handful of fields, and get the format, fixtures and budget straight away. Export a watermarked PDF — enough to plan with, budget with, and take to a sponsor.
Open the plannerHave us do it for you
Real entries, named referees and kit colours built in, watermark removed, your crest on every page, or a large multi-age-group event. Tell us the size and we will quote and deliver a finished plan.
Get a quote