The Plazma Youth Sport Games (YSG), Europe's biggest amateur sports event for children, celebrated its 30th anniversary in the Croatian city of Split this month. Nearly half a million young people from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and North Macedonia took part in qualifying for this year's event, with finals in 10 sports held over a week in Split.
Chess with celebrity coaches
At one event, 20 children played chess against grandmaster Nigel Short, with support from celebrity coaches including former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, former Burnley manager Sean Dyche, and tech billionaire Peter Thiel. The children, the best young chess players from the Balkans, competed not against each other but against Short, who moved around the group playing one move each time.
The organisers describe Plazma as both a sporting event and a "social project", encouraging children to learn lessons in teamwork, collaboration and putting phones away. The message has attracted ambassadors from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Alastair Campbell.
Founder's vision and growth
Dyche called the Games "a brilliant, brilliant initiative", with a particular highlight being the girls' mini-football final. "It was terrific, they were playing good football; getting properly stuck into each other, properly playing," he said. "You could feel that they felt free and were being supported in that environment."
The Games were founded by Zdravko Maric in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian war, with motivations centred on countering drug problems among Croatia's young people at that time. "It's a lifetime project and we live with it every day," said Slaven Maric, Zdravko's brother. "But when Zladko started it we didn't have an idea that it would develop into this. It's not about sport or the results, its about social life, it's about being together."
Split's sporting legacy and future plans
Split, with a population of 160,000, has raised stars such as Goran Ivanisevic, Bernard Vukas, and Luka Modric, and has its own Olympic "walk of fame" celebrating 73 medal winners. Slaven Bilic, another native and YSG ambassador, said: "I'm not objective because I've known Zdravko for more than 30 years but it's great that at a time when there's a lot of negativity in the world that this can exist."
North Macedonia competed for the first time this year, while Ukrainian teams were invited guests. Discussions have taken place with six other countries about joining in the future. Sponsorship deals are growing, with Coca-Cola, Topps, and Telemach as partners. There are now 11 billionaires associated with the games, with Thiel understood to be one investor, though he did not respond to questions about his stake.
Uefa's president, Aleksander Ceferin, whose organisation provides funding to the YSG, praised the Games: "I think that top sport, and the money that you get with top competition, should be used for the development of sport and this is the development of sport." The Games ended with a football match between a YSG team and 11 all-stars including Claude Makélélé, Pavel Nedved, and Ibrahimovic, with Dyche coaching the local players.
