Free Team Sports Tournament Software Compared
Ten free plans for football, futsal, volleyball, basketball, handball and ice hockey, and the number where each one stops
Most free plans we read for team tournaments have a number you can check on the vendor's site. Between 25 and 31 October 2026: LiveCup Free stops at 4 teams per tournament, Tournify Amateur at 8 teams, Score7 Starter at 1 active tournament, Turnierplan.eu Free at 5 tournaments with ads, LeagueLobster Free at 50 games a month and Challonge's free plan at 256 participants. Torneo says it is completely free with no limit on tournaments. TeamLinkt Core costs $0, but tournaments and brackets sit in a paid add-on. JudgeMate has no paid plan and runs round robin, knockout and groups into a knockout for clubs in all six sports, with a match scoreboard built for each sport.
How we read the free plans
Between 25 and 31 October 2026 we opened each vendor's pricing or product page without logging in and copied the free-plan limit in the vendor's words. The criterion is one number per product that you can check yourself before the entry form goes out: teams per tournament, tournaments per account, games per month or participants per bracket. Where a vendor publishes no number, the table says so.
Ten products made the list. Five are tournament tools that name team sports: Torneo, Tournify, LiveCup, Turnierplan.eu and Copa Fácil. Score7 is a general tournament tool and Challonge a general bracket tool. LeagueLobster and LeagueRepublic schedule leagues, and TeamLinkt runs club administration with tournaments as an add-on.
One page covers six sports because the same tools serve all of them. Volleyball and ice hockey also have their own comparisons with specialist products: volleyball tournament software and ice hockey league software.
Ten free plans and the number that stops each one
| Product | Free plan, in the vendor's words | Team sports named | First paid step |
|---|---|---|---|
| JudgeMate | No paid plan | Football, futsal, volleyball, basketball, handball, ice hockey | None |
| Torneo | "Yes, completely free." "There is no limit on the number of leagues or tournaments" | Football, futsal, basketball, volleyball, handball; no ice hockey | None |
| Tournify Amateur | "Free per event", "Up to 8 teams" | All six | €40 per event, up to 60 teams |
| LiveCup Free | "Up to 1 active tournaments", "Up to 3 tournaments per month", "Up to 4 teams per tournament" | Football, futsal, volleyball, "or any sport" | Pro $9 a month, up to 32 teams |
| Score7 Starter | "one active tournament at a time" (help centre), "Single admin", "Score7 branding" | General | Essentials $9.00 a month, more active tournaments |
| Turnierplan.eu Free | "Up to 5 tournaments", "With ads", "PDF export with watermark" | Football, volleyball (leagues) | Premium €4.90 a month, 20 tournaments |
| Copa Fácil | "Crea torneos, añade equipos e introduce resultados gratis." No number published | Football, basketball, volleyball | R$ 25 a month, up to 300 players |
| Challonge Standard | "$0 supported by advertising", "Up to 256 participants per tournament" | Any game or sport | Premier $6.99 a month billed yearly |
| LeagueLobster Free | "50 games included each month", "Ads on the published schedule", "Export turned off" | General | Lite $9.95 a month, 100 games |
| LeagueRepublic Free | "Everything you need to run a sports league". No number published | Football and other leagues | Gold €16.50 a month, up to 25 teams |
| TeamLinkt Core | "$0 forever", "Pay only when you collect". No number published | Team sports | Tournaments in the Operations add-on, $425 a year |
Prices and limits as published between 25 and 31 October 2026. Copa Fácil's Brazilian page shows prices in reais; we quote those.
What those numbers mean for a real team tournament
A team tournament uses up a free plan faster than the headline suggests, because matches multiply with every team you add. A round robin needs n(n−1)/2 matches.
Four teams (LiveCup Free). A round robin of four plays 6 matches. That is a friendly afternoon. The fifth club that asks to join means paying: Pro at $9 a month, or a single tournament for $3 (up to 32 teams).
Eight teams (Tournify Amateur). Two groups of four, semi-finals, a third-place match and a final come to 2 × 6 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 16 matches. Eight is a typical youth football day or a small indoor event, and a ninth team needs the €40 plan.
Fifty games a month (LeagueLobster Free). A one-day youth tournament with 16 teams in four groups of four has 24 group matches, then quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place match and a final: 32 games. Two such weekends in one month exceed 50.
Five tournaments (Turnierplan.eu Free). A winter series of indoor football Sundays runs past five dates before the season ends.
One active tournament (Score7 Starter). A club that runs an under-10 and an under-12 tournament on the same Saturday needs two.
In JudgeMate one event holds several categories, so the under-10s and under-12s sit in the same event with one public page. Each category loads up to 500 matches.
The JudgeMate column, sport by sport
All six sports run as club tournaments: the club enters by name, players need no account, and a squad holds up to 30 people. Formats are the same three everywhere: round robin, knockout, and groups into a knockout (one to four groups). Knockouts can add a third-place match and a consolation round. What changes per sport is the scoreboard, the two-leg option and the table rules.
| Sport | Match scoreboard counts | Two-leg ties | Table rules you can pick | Default walkover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Football | Clock, goals, yellow and red cards, extra time, penalty shoot-out | Yes | Your own points (3/1/0 by default); in leagues, head-to-head first or goal difference first | 3-0 |
| Futsal | Clock, goals, cards, shoot-out | Yes | Your own points | 5-0 |
| Volleyball | Sets, rotation positions 1–6 at the serve | No | FIVB, PZPS league, PZPS tournament, or your own | Counted in sets |
| Basketball | Quarters, 24/14 shot clock, team fouls and bonus | No | FIBA (Annex D) or your own | 20-0 |
| Handball | Clock, goals, 2-minute suspensions | Yes | IHF or your own | 10-0 |
| Ice hockey | Clock, goals, timed penalties, shoot-out | Yes | IIHF or your own | 5-0 |
The organiser can change the walkover score in the draw or league settings.
Football in more detail. JudgeMate has no federation table preset for football, because national associations and leagues order tied teams differently. A league lets you choose between two orders: head-to-head, then goal difference, then goals scored (the default), or goal difference, then goals scored, then head-to-head. A two-legged tie adds up the goals from both matches and goes to a penalty shoot-out if the aggregate is level. Away goals do not count. The scoreboard follows the IFAB shoot-out, five kicks each and then sudden death, and the operator ends the match. It does not log substitutions or temporary dismissals (sin bins).
Try one match on the football live scoreboard, or open the boards for futsal, volleyball, basketball, handball and ice hockey.
Who enters the score in JudgeMate
Free plans differ in who may type a result, so here is how it works in JudgeMate today.
By default the organiser enters every result. In a new category, players do not report scores.
Players report, if you switch it on. In group matches and round-robin matches of an event tournament, the organiser can let the teams report: one side enters the score and the other confirms it.
Knockout matches are confirmed by the organiser only. That covers the main bracket, the consolation round and the third-place match, whatever the reporting setting.
A referee with the match QR code keeps the score on the live scoreboard. When the board ends, the match counts as ended, and the table and bracket use it after the organiser confirms the result.
In the league module, results come from the organiser and co-organisers. Player reporting does not exist there.
If your plan was to let team managers type in their own scores for a whole knockout day, that does not work in JudgeMate.
JudgeMate: what is free and what is missing
JudgeMate has no paid plan and no card at sign-up. The plan sets no cap on events or tournaments. The software loads up to 50 categories per event, and each category loads up to 200 teams and 500 matches.
Included at no cost: club tournaments in the three formats above, two-legged ties in football, futsal, handball and ice hockey, pitches or courts as resources with an automatic schedule, a referee QR code for each match, a public event page, printable match cards and a printed bracket. Leagues with a single round or with home and away fixtures. A live scoreboard for each of the six sports. The bracket generator draws a football, volleyball or basketball bracket without an account, and the schedule maker exports a fixture list.
Not in the product: taking payments (entry fees are recorded as paid, waived or unpaid, and nobody pays through us), email, SMS or push notifications, a native app, links to association systems, and an association-approved match report or scoresheet. Torneo publishes eligible competitions to Sofascore and has iOS and Android apps; we have neither.
Which free option fits your event
Up to eight teams, one day, no screen in the hall: Tournify Amateur, LiveCup Free (up to four teams) or Score7 Starter cover it. Pick the interface you like.
More than eight teams, several age groups, no budget: Torneo publishes no team limit, and a JudgeMate category takes up to 200 teams. Torneo has no ice hockey; JudgeMate covers all six sports.
A season of league fixtures: LeagueRepublic and LeagueLobster schedule leagues. Count your games against LeagueLobster's 50 a month. A JudgeMate league plays one round or home and away, your choice, with results entered by the organiser and co-organisers.
Two-legged cup ties in football, futsal, handball or ice hockey: JudgeMate supports them, with a shoot-out on a level aggregate and no away goals.
Collecting entry fees online: TeamLinkt Core is free until you collect money. Challonge Standard takes paid registrations through Stripe with a $0.75 fee per order, and LeagueRepublic Free lists online registrations and payments. JudgeMate does not take payments.
An official league of your association: use the association's system. JudgeMate has no link to it.
To start, create a football tournament and choose club entries.
Try JudgeMate on your next event
A football event takes about 10 minutes to configure. No athlete limits, no commission on registrations. See football features · Football glossary
See also
Football tournament software
Torneo, Tournify, Copa Fácil, Turnierplan.eu, Score7, LiveCup, Competize, LeagueRepublic and JudgeMate on free plans, two-legged ties and live scoring.
Torneo alternative
Torneo by Sofascore is free and puts eligible leagues on Sofascore — and where JudgeMate adds a match clock, two-legged ties and referee QR codes.
Copa Fácil alternative
Football leagues and cups in an app with scorers, cards and social graphics — and where JudgeMate fits: the match on the venue screen and two-legged ties.
Turnierplan.eu alternative
Turnierplan.eu plans indoor and one-day tournaments with ads on the free plan — and where JudgeMate adds an ad-free match scoreboard.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Torneo: FAQ and features — Sofascore
- Tournify: pricing — Tournify B.V.
- Score7: pricing — Score7
- LiveCup: plans — LiveCup
- Turnierplan.eu: prices — Turnierplan.eu
- Copa Fácil — Copa Fácil
- Challonge: pricing — Challonge
- LeagueLobster: scheduler pricing — LeagueLobster
- LeagueRepublic: pricing — LeagueRepublic
- TeamLinkt: pricing — TeamLinkt
- IFAB Laws of the Game 2026/27 — The International Football Association Board