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(June 2026) -- We have added historical coverage of the Europe-Africa Region tournament to the Unpage site! Click on the left side of this page to explore past tournament winners and results. As part of this coverage, we have begun our coverage of the 2026 Europe-Africa Region tournament -- click for details. ----- 2026 brings our 30th and final summer of coverage for the international tournament, and our coverage this year will begin with post-district tournament competition.
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Our coverage of the Europe-Africa Region tournament launched on June 10, 2026. Click to contact the webmaster with any comments or questions about this site.
As the aftermath of World War II evolved into the Cold War, the U.S. military maintained an extensive presence in allied countries in Europe and neighboring regions. By the late 1950s, roughly 360,000 active duty U.S. military personnel were stationed in Europe, and that presence increased to 400,000 personnel by 1962 in response to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.
The ecosystem around military communities typically includes support services and recreational activites for active duty personnel and their dependents. In 1955, the Wiesbaden Booster Club established the first official Little League program in Europe, chartering a league to serve the needs of dependents at Wiesbaden Air Base in West Germany.
At the club's urging, Carl Stotz, founder and commissioner of Little League Baseball, and John Lindemuth, the organization's executive secretary, embarked on an extended tour of U.S. military installations throughout Europe and North Africa in May and June of 1955 looking to stimulate interest among booster clubs, officers' organizations, and other military and dependent groups. Leagues soon formed at bases across the region, with some being officially chartered and others independent but closely modeled after Little League's rules. By 1960, there were 70 chartered leagues across Europe and North Africa serving military communities, as well as dependents of workers at embassies, diplomatic missions, and multinational organizations.
Little League Baseball expanded its tournament competition to eight regions in 1958, formally creating the Europe Region alongside three other international regions. European Region tournaments were held in 1958 and 1959, though participating teams knew in advance that prohibitive travel costs meant the European champion would not participate in the Little League World Series. This changed in 1960, when Berlin Command Little League (West Germany) became the first European champion to participate in the Little League World Series. Torrejon Air Base (Torrejon de Ardoz, Spain), which captured seven region titles in the time before the base's closure in 1992, became the first European-based team to win a championship bracket game in South Williamsport when it defeated Augusta East Little League (Maine), 5-0, in the 1971 Little League World Series.
A few leagues affiliated with non-military communities -- notably Arabian American Little League, which served dependents of expatriot workers at Aramco oil company in Saudi Arabia -- affiliated with Little League Baseball during the Cold War years, but the breadth of Little League's footprint was largely dependent on the size and location of the U.S. military presence across the continent. This began to change in 1989, when Israel and Jordan entered teams comprised of locally born players in the region tournament. (The two Middle Eastern countries were first placed in the same bracket in 1993, when baseball intersected with foreign affairs and Jordan elected to forfeit rather than play Israel. Jordanian officials permitted the two to play each other for the first time on August 3, 1994.)
Rapid change came to both Europe and to Little League Baseball after the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. That winter, Little League granted charters to leagues in five Central and Eastern European countries: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia and Poland immediately entered teams in the international tournament, with Poland recording its first win on August 1, 1990, a 4-2 win over Israel, and Czechoslovakia securing its first win the following year.
The founding of charters in former Soviet Bloc countries marked an important shift in the composition of Little League's presence in Europe. The U.S. drew down its active duty presence from 340,000 personnel (1989 estimate) to 108,000 (1995 estimate), deactivated many units, and returned hundreds of airfields, barracks, and support facilities to governments in their host countries. This impacted Little League Baseball's presence in the region. At the same time, baseball as a sport and Little League as an organization began to establish a stronger foothold amongst native Europeans. By 1998, nearly half of the entrants in the European Region tournament were comprised of native European or African players, and the region's growth culminated in 2000 with a record 20-team field for the region tournament, with twelve entrants comprised of players native to the countries they represented.
The European Region tournament had been hosted on a rotating basis by various military bases or expat-focused leagues since its inception in 1958. With those communities becoming less prevalent, Little League Baseball signed an agreement with the town of Kutno, Poland, in 1995 to construct a European Leadership Training Center. The facility opened in 1996, and became the permanent home of Little League's European Region tournament for the Little League Baseball division. Little League constructed a second field with dimensions appropriate for the Little League Baseball age division in 2000, and dedicated its two main playing fields as Stan Musial Field and Edward Piszek Field at that year's region tournament. Little League's facility in Kutno also hosts a number of independent tournaments each year in a region where, with baseball still largely a developing sport, dedicated baseball facilities can be scarce.
In 2001, Little League Baseball doubled the Little League World Series field from eight to sixteen teams. The European Region remained intact as an administrative region serving leagues across Europe, and as part of the series expansion, Little League evolved its tournament competition in the region to include separate tournaments for native European players and for expatriot communities. The new Europe Region tournament included teams of native European and African players, and the new Transatlantic Region focused on leagues serving non-native players. Khovrino Little League from Moscow, Russia, became the first team comprised of native European players to participate in the Little League World Series after it defeated a team from the Republic of Georgia in the 2001 European Region championship game. Two years later, Khovrino returned to South Williamsport, and became the first native European team to secure a victory in the Little League World Series with a 2-0 victory over Guam Central Little League (Hagatna, Guam) on August 17, 2003.
In February 2006, Little League Baseball entered into an agreement with the Confederation of European Baseball to work collectively in developing the sport in Europe. Little League agreed to provide training materials, clinics, and other development resources, and the CEB would encourage its members to charter its youth baseball programs with Little League Baseball to take advantage of these support and development resources. This agreement has been extended several times, first with CEB and later with the World Baseball Softball Confederation Europe (WBSC Europe) following a 2018 merger with the European Softball Federation. The most recent agreement, signed in 2023, came as Little League had surpassed more than 1,300 registered teams in the Europe-Africa region across all baseball and softball age divisions.
Two years later, Little League evolved its European tournament offerings, discontinuing the Transatlantic Region and replacing it with a Middle East-Africa (MEA) Region. This change enabled European-based leagues to compete for a European championship in the international tournament. Following the 2013 international tournament, Little League Baseball discontinued the MEA region and, similar to FIFA's organizing structure for world football, reassigned most Middle Eastern leagues to the Asia-Pacific Region. The Europe Region tournament was evolved to the Europe-Africa Region tournament, which has been offered since this change.
Today, the WBSC Europe estimates there are over 100,000 active and registered baseball players across Europe, and an additional 60,000+ registered softball players. Two-thirds of these participate in youth division competitions.
Since the Europe-Africa Region's focus has shifted to native players in 2001, three teams from the Europe-Africa Region or its predecessors have won championship bracket games at the Little League World Series: Khovrino Little League (Moscow, Russia) in 2003, AVRS Secondary School Little League (Kampala, Uganda) in 2015, and Emilia Romagna Little League (Bologna, Italy) in 2022.
Click to view a timeline showing the evolution of the Europe-Africa Region Little League tournament structure.
 Great Lakes Region |
Mountain Region |
Southeast Region |
| Metro Region |
New England Region |
Southwest Region |
| Mid-Atlantic Region |
Northwest Region |
West Region |
| Midwest Region |
| Asia-Pacific Region NEW FOR 2026! |
Cuba |
France |
| Australia Region |
Czechia |
Japanese Region |
| Canadian Region |
Europe-Africa Region NEW FOR 2026! |
Latin America Region NEW FOR 2026! |
| Caribbean Region NEW FOR 2026! |
| Alabama |
Iowa |
North Carolina |
| Alaska |
Kansas |
Ohio NEW FOR 2026! |
| Arizona |
Kentucky NEW FOR 2026! |
Ontario |
| British Columbia |
Maine |
Oregon |
| California (Northern) |
Maryland |
Pennsylvania |
| California (Southern) |
Massachusetts |
Rhode Island |
| Colorado |
Michigan |
South Dakota |
| Connecticut |
Minnesota |
Tennessee |
| Delaware |
Missouri |
Texas (East and West) |
| District of Columbia |
Montana |
Utah NEW FOR 2026! |
| Florida |
Nebraska |
Vermont |
| Georgia |
Nevada |
Virginia |
| Hawaii |
New Hampshire |
Washington |
| Idaho |
New Jersey |
Wisconsin |
| Illinois |
New Mexico |
Wyoming |
| Indiana |
New York |
| Central Region |
Southern Region |
Western Region |
| Eastern Region |
| Region 1 |
Region 4 |
Region 7 |
| Region 2 |
Region 5 |
Region 8 |
| Region 3 |
Region 6 |