The Youth World Cup will be a girls' 16-and-under fast pitch competition and will be held in the second week of August next year, with a number of major European capital cities currently being considered to host the event. The tournament is likely to take a single round robin format, culminating in a page playoff.
ISF President Don Porter said that there is tremendous interest in staging the event but refused to be drawn on identifying candidate cities at this stage. “This is another fantastic development for our sport and underlines its growing popularity. Softball is incredibly popular among young people and we're currently in the process of drawing up a shortlist of cities.”
Porter hailed the new event as a breakthrough in Softball’s campaign for Olympic reinstatement in 2016. He said, "We are increasing the number of softball federations all the time but we're not going to be resting on our laurels and hopefully this event will help us further widen the sport's appeal."
The aim is for softball to return as a sport on the 2016 Games programme after missing out by the narrowest of margins (only one vote) for the London 2012 programme at the 2005 Session of the International Olympic Committee.
The 2008 Olympic softball competition has been a success with: Sellout crowds exceeding 180,000 in total; A high ratio of close games decided by three runs or less with rule changes dramatically increasing the total runs scored; Worldwide media coverage of the Olympic softball competition in more than 100 countries; Increased competitiveness with debutant Venezuela defeating Netherlands and Canada and age ranges from Netherlands' Britt Vonk, age 17, to Venezuela's Zuleima Cirimele, age 41.
