The Four Nations Tournament was an annual semi-professional football competition in Europe. It was last won by the England C in 2008, the last tournament held.
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The tournament was originally held from 1979 to 1987 between teams from England, Scotland, Italy and the Netherlands. It was brought back from 2002 to 2008 with semi-pro teams England C, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing. The revived competition had a format of all nations playing each other and table with the team finishing top declared the winner, and was held towards the end of the British domestic football season.
History
From 1979 to 1987 it was known as Torneo delle Quattro Nazioni per Rappresentative di Lega, and was originally competed for by Scotland Semi-Pro, England Semi-Pro, Netherlands Amateurs and Italy Serie C U-21s. The tournament was cancelled in 1986 and abandoned from 1988 to 2001.
When the tournament returned in 2002, the semi-pro teams of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales competed. The Gibraltar national team replaced Ireland in 2008.
The tournament has been won six times by England, three times by Wales and Scotland, and twice by Italy.
There was talk of the tournament returning in 2009 but it did not happen. Supposedly, Scotland were rumoured to be considering a withdrawal with Northern Ireland ready to step in and join the semi-pro teams of Wales and England and the Gibraltar national team. Scotland withdrew from the competition after 2008 because of a lack of funding. Gibraltar later also chose also not to return for 2009. This left the tournament in doubt because it had only two teams signed up for next year's competition.
Format
The first tournament consisted of two semi-finals, a final and a third/fourth play-off. Every other tournament was a group stage with each national side playing each other once in a round robin format. The competition was always hosted as a one-off tournament by one of the competing nations, usually the competition was stage by each competing national side within a period of every four years.