St. Gallen is preparing to host an event that brings youth women's football into the spotlight of eastern Switzerland. On Saturday 27 June 2026, from 10:00 to 19:00, the Sportanlage Gründenmoos will host the Comites Cup St. Gallen 2026, an Under 17 international tournament organised by the Comites of St. Gallen through its Culture, Sport and Leisure Committee. Admission will be free for the whole day, a choice that underlines the grassroots vocation of the initiative.
On the Gründenmoos pitch, eight teams will face each other, representing some of the most structured youth sectors of the central Alpine area and Southern Europe. For Italy, the girls of SSC Napoli and Hellas Verona will be in action, two clubs that in recent years have invested increasingly in their women's youth academies. Germany responds with two top-class clubs: VfB Stuttgart and 1. FC Union Berlin, the latter a symbol of Berlin's grassroots football. Switzerland presents itself at home with a high-quality quartet made up of BSC Young Boys of Bern, Grasshopper Club Zürich, FC Zürich and FC St. Gallen, hosts of the day.
The format chosen by the organisers includes a first group stage followed by a double knockout phase, divided into a winners' bracket and a losers' bracket. A solution that ensures the right balance between competition and playing time on the pitch: every team is guaranteed at least five matches throughout the day, regardless of the results obtained in the early encounters. For such young athletes, the chance to face foreign opponents several times represents a technical and human asset that is hard to replicate in the usual league calendars.
The idea behind the Comites Cup is twofold. On one hand, it aims to offer Under 17 footballers an authentic international showcase, made of real matches against peers from different football schools; on the other, it intends to give youth women's football the space it deserves within the Italian community in Switzerland and the local sports fabric. The event is also designed for families: organisers estimate an attendance of between 500 and 800 people during the day, with on-site catering, continuous entertainment and moderation between matches, a raffle with prizes in the afternoon and the awards ceremony to close the event.
Alongside the sporting result, the Comites Cup aims to build bridges. On one side, the Italian community of St. Gallen, which has always been active on the cultural and associative front; on the other, the Swiss, German and Italian clubs that have chosen to send their youth squads on the road. It is a network growing around a football, telling the story of how sport can become a tool for dialogue between territories and generations. In a season in which women's football continues to gain ground in terms of media attention, initiatives like this contribute to building the foundations of the movement from the bottom up, starting from the girls who today step onto the youth pitches and who tomorrow could wear the jerseys of major clubs and national teams.
Those who want to experience the day up close will find at the Gründenmoos everything needed to enjoy the spectacle: a quality playing field, a welcome designed for family audiences and a programme that will unfold without significant breaks from the early morning matches to the evening awards.
Saturday 27 June 2026, 10:00 — 19:00
Sportanlage Gründenmoos
Gründenstrasse 4, 9015 St. Gallen
Free admission
For information, you can contact the Centro Culturale Italiano of St. Gallen, Katharinengasse 21, 9004 St. Gallen, at 071 223 76 08 or at centroit.sg@bluewin.ch. Updates on the event are available on the official Facebook page of the event.
