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On a dais overlooking the Adriatic, 20 children are playing chess. Arranged in a circle, they are competing not against each other but against the grandmaster Nigel Short, who passes awkwardly around the group playing one move each time. The children are no slouches, the best young chess players from the Balkans. But, in a twist, they can also call on the support of celebrity coaches. And so we have the unusual sight of precocious chess talents being coached through their games not just by the former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, but by the former Burnley manager Sean Dyche and, in quite the eyebrow-raiser, the rightwing tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

This is just one event at the Plazma Youth Sport Games (YSG), which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in the Croatian city of Split this month. Described by some of its more esteemed visitors as “the Davos of sport”, it brings eminent figures from the world of sport and politics to the Dalmatian coast each summer. More important, it is also the biggest amateur sports event for children in Europe. Just under half a million young people from across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and North Macedonia took part in qualifying for this year’s event. The finals in 10 sports – from chess to 3v3 basketball – are then held over the course of a week in Split. Alongside the competition, children are encouraged to learn lessons in teamwork, collaboration and putting phones away. The organisers describe Plazma as both a sporting event and a “social project”.

The message has proved a winning one for any number of sportspeople and celebrities who have become ambassadors for YSG – from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Alastair Campbell. It’s now par for the course to see visitors come away evangelised. Dyche calls the Games “a brilliant, brilliant initiative”, with a particular highlight being the girls’ mini-football final. “It was terrific, they were playing good football; getting properly stuck into each other, properly playing,” he said. “You could feel that they felt free and were being supported in that environment.”

Dyche says he is sceptical that something similar to the YSG could have sprung up in the UK. “It seems to me that every time you try and get an initiative off in England, there’s a million rules and regulations that make it difficult,” he said. “I know how hard it can be to get funding too and times are tough for people.”

The Plazma games were themselves born of hard times, however. Founded by Zdravko Maric in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian war, his motivations were less about bringing peace and more about countering the drug problems that existed among Croatia’s young people at that time.

“It’s a lifetime project and we live with it every day,” says Slaven Maric, Zdravko’s brother, who has also worked on the games since their inception. “But when Zladko started it we didn’t have an idea that it would develop into this. It’s not about sport or the results, its about social life, it’s about being together. There were many issues with drug abuse [then], now it’s about bringing the kids to spend sometime together in real life.” Getting kids off their phones is indeed a key message for the games in 2026. Maric says attempts by esports brands to become involved in the event have been rebuffed.

In bringing the games to Split, the Maric family were adding a new layer to the city’s incredible sporting history. A small city with a contemporary population of only 160,000 people, Split has raised stars such as Goran Ivanisevic and Bernard Vukas (before Luka Modric, the man adjudged the greatest Croatian footballer of all time). Across the decades, however, they can boast champions in any number of sports: from Branko Cikatic, one of the greatest kickboxers, to the NBA threepeat champion Toni Kukoc and the celebrated mountaineer Stipe Bozic. Split even has its own Olympic “walk of fame”, celebrating its 73 medal winners in Hollywood style. It also has its own sport, picigin, a kind of hackysack for the hands, and played in the shallows of the Adriatic.

The connection between the games and the city runs deep, therefore, and the pride in its success on the part of locals is obvious. Slaven Bilic is another native, the former Premier League player and manager now inevitably a YSG ambassador. “I’m not objective because I’ve known Zdravko for more than 30 years but it’s great that at a time when there’s a lot of negativity in the world that this can exist,” Bilic said. “Especially in this part of the world that is supposed to be unstable.”

The question of where the games go next is clearly looming large for organisers and associated parties alike. One clear ambition appears to be to increase the number of nations involved. North Macedonia competed for the first time this year, while Ukrainian teams were invited guests. Discussions have taken place with six other countries about joining in the future. Sponsorship deals are also growing, with Coca-Cola a partner as well as the Topps brand and the leading Croatian telecom firm Telemach. Perhaps more relevant, there are now 11 billionaires associated with the games, a number of whom have invested money in its success. One of those investors is understood to be Thiel, the founder of PayPal and Palantir and a mentor to JD Vance, the US vice-president. When asked by the Guardian why he had chosen to take a stake in the games, Thiel did not respond and passed down the riviera with his security detail.

Aleksander Ceferin, the president of Uefa, whose organisation also provides funding to the YSG, has his own view. He sees them as an example of big sport doing things right. Reluctant to answer questions about his continuing battle with Fifa while he was in Split, Ceferin’s praise for the games still seemed to carry some subtext. “I think that top sport, and the money that you get with top competition, should be used for the development of sport and this is the development of sport,” he said, prompting an inevitable comparison with Gianni Infantino’s attempts to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors.

The Games ended on Friday night with their own version of Soccer Aid. A football match between a YSG team and 11 all-stars seemed somewhat imbalanced, given the all-stars could boast Claude Makélélé, Pavel Nedved and Ibrahimovic in their ranks. On the other hand, the local players had Dyche as their coach. Building bridges, forming memories, and getting proper stuck in. A decent way to finish your birthday week.