Hundreds of children across the UK are to take part in a football tournament which has been set up in an attempt to tackle youth crime.

The Kickoff@3 Daniel De-Gale Football Tournament is being held on Sunday (June 17) and will see 22 teams from across the UK take part in an all-day seven-a-side football competition from 11am at The Warren, the Met’s Sports Ground in Hayes.

More than 200 players from London, Hertfordshire, Durham, Belfast, Gwent, Wiltshire and the West Midlands are expected to take part.

KickOff@3 was established by Met officer PC Michael Wallace and Mr Ashley Levien, who runs his own social inclusion project called 'Suberbos Community'.

Both men, who are based in Barnet, worked together to found the initiative which aims to help establish long lasting relationships between young people and their local police.

The tournament was created as a youth diversion scheme, as well as building trust and positive affiliations between the two groups.

A KickOff@3 tournament which ws played last year in Hayes

The football tournament is named after Daniel De-Gale, a vibrant young man who was the first black person in the UK to receive a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor.

Daniel was diagnosed with Leukaemia at the age of six in 1993 and a lack of black donors meant the odds of finding a match were 250,000-to-one.

This statistic prompted his mother Beverley and partner Orin Lewis to start the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) in an attempt to raise awareness and educate communities on the lack of donors for African and Caribbean people.

Daniel found a match in 1999 and after a successful bone marrow transplant lived happily for several years.

But at the age of 21 he sadly died from an illness unrelated to cancer.

Beverley, who won a Pride of Britain award in 2006 for her work, and partner Orin will present the winners’ cup in honour of their son at the final of the tournament.

Family, friends and senior police officers from the Constabularies and the Metropolitan Police Service will attend to support the competitors, and will be joined by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the London Fire Brigade.

Daniel with his mother Beverley and her partner Orin Lewis

Before the start of the competition, the players and supporters will stand united in a one-minute silence to remember the young lives that have been lost through violent crime.

For the past five months, officers working on boroughs across the Met and in other forces assisted in facilitating the formation of local teams to take part in this programme.

This year, there were more than 1,000 youngsters taking part in Kickoff@3's football tournaments, which were held in London and across the UK.

PC Michael Wallace, one of the tournament organisers, said: “This project is about the community and the police coming together as one, whilst working hand-in-hand to make those key differences.

“This has helped empower our Kickoff@3 initiative. We are delighted to hold this specific event on Father’s Day, as this is key to bringing families together in a safe and fun environment, supporting our young people.”

For more information about the initiative, dates of future events/tournaments and how to participate go to www.kickoffat3.co.uk .