The tournament was inspired by the Lion City Cup that was created by the Football Association of Singapore in 1977.

Starting with the 2011 tournament, the extra time period was eliminated to avoid player burnout, and all knockout games progress straight to penalties if tied at the end of 90 minutes.

Each mini-tournament is divided into 3 groups of 4, with the winners and best runner up qualifying to a four-team knockout stage.

The winners of each of these mini-tournaments would qualify to a 'final four' tournament with 2 semi-finals, a third place match and a final to decide the FIFA U17 World Champions.

For the first edition of the tournament in 1985, all of the teams from Europe plus Bolivia appeared by invitation of FIFA.

Africa is the most successful continental zone with seven tournament wins (five for Nigeria, two for Ghana) and six times as runner-up.

Europe has five tournaments wins (one each for France, USSR, Switzerland, England and Germany) and has been runner-up seven times.

This tournament is peculiar in that the majority of titles have gone to teams from outside the strongest regional confederations (CONMEBOL and UEFA).

Of the fifteen editions held so far, nine (60 percent of the total) have been won by teams from North and Central America, Africa and Asia.