It was designed to provide players with the opportunity to match themselves against other elite European footballers of their agegroup in a competitive environment.

The competition was created by sports TV producer Justin Andrews, Mark Warburton and current Brentford F.C.

[1] On 16 August 2013, organisers confirmed that the NextGen Series had been suspended for the 2013–14 campaign because of funding issues and lacking of competitive space since the creation of the UEFA Youth League.

Ajax and Manchester City played a behind closed doors match in November 2010 as did Liverpool and Celtic.

A compromise deal was tabled by Andrews and Warburton, with the aim of combining the two tournaments and giving places to non-Champions League clubs with notable academies, but the proposal was rejected by UEFA.