Euro U21s 2025: Why can 23-year-olds play in the tournament?

Players aged up to 23 years old can feature at the European Under-21 Championship, under way in Slovakia.

That is because its player registration rules are designed to ensure players can feature through an entire tournament cycle – from the start of the qualifiers through to the finals.

It means that, for the 2025 tournament, players can feature if they were born on or after 1 January 2002 – meaning they were 21 or younger at the start of the year in which qualification began.

The tournament, which started on Wednesday, consists of 16 nations, each with 23-strong squads – a total of 368 players.

Of those, 205 were aged either 22 or 23 on the opening day of the tournament – 55.7% of the total number of players. A total of 73 players were aged 23 on the tournament’s opening day – 19.8%.

Defending champions England, managed by Lee Carsley, are the only nation without a 23-year-old currently at the tournament. Middlesbrough midfielder Hayden Hackney does turn 23 two days before the final on 28 June.

England’s players in the squad who are aged above 21 include captain James McAtee of Manchester City, Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott and Newcastle defender Tino Livramento, who is the only member of Carsley’s squad to have been capped at senior level.

All 16 nations have a minimum of nine players who are 22 or 23 years of age. Georgia’s squad has 19 players who were aged 22 or 23 on the tournament’s opening day.

The oldest player at the tournament is Stoke City’s Million Manhoef, who is in the Netherlands squad. He was born on 3 January 2002.

The rule regarding the cut-off date – meaning players can be no older than 23 years and six months – is a long-standing one.

But when it was first staged as an Under-21 tournament in 1978 – having previously been an Under-23s competition – each country was allowed two players over 21.

Yugoslavia won the 1978 tournament spearheaded by 26-year-old striker Vahid Halilhodzic, who scored four times in the two-legged final against East Germany – including a second-leg hat-trick, external – and was named Player of the Tournament.