£1.5m funding boost for grassroots football

Gareth Southgate is backing Grow the Game, which is being delivered by the Football Foundation

Underrepresented groups in grassroots football will soon have more teams to play in. The FA is putting £1.5m into the Grow the Game scheme, a programme that increases participation at the lowest levels of the game.

Delivered by the Football Foundation, Grow the Game awards grants to grassroots football clubs that wish to create new teams. Applications are being encouraged from:

• Women and girls
• Male teams of under 14s and upwards
• Disabled teams 

Grow the Game supports football’s diversity and is designed to be inclusive of players from different genders, ethnic backgrounds, faiths, ages, sexual orientations and those with disabilities. Applications from all of these groups are being encouraged.

Grow the Game grants lessen the burden of costs associated with starting new grassroots football teams. £1,500 is available for each new team that a club creates. Expenditure that the funding can help a club pay for includes: FA coaching courses, FA league affiliation costs, referees’ fees, first aid kits, and even football kit and equipment.

The application window for Grow the Game applications opened on Wednesday 1 February and closes on Wednesday 29 March. 

Grow the Game is delivered by the Football Foundation, the nation’s largest sports charity. Last year the scheme achieved:

• 2,159 new teams
• 8,787 female footballers
• 23,332 male footballers
• 5,715 new coaching qualifications 

Since it was launched in 2010, the Grow the Game scheme has attracted a total of 161,285 new football players into playing regular football.

As well as delivering Grow the Game, the Football Foundation delivers the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund on behalf of the Premier League, The FA and the Government, through Sport England. Since 2000, the Foundation has supported over 15,000 grassroots projects worth more than £1.4bn.