October 24 – English grassroots will receive a £102 million boost over the next three years via a new fund that will contribute to new facilities and coaching initiatives throughout the country.
Administered by the Football Foundation, the new body will have a new name – the Premier League and FA Facilities Fund. The Football Foundation has spent £412 million of funding since 2000 and generated over £1 billion of matched funding for grass roots projects – where Football Foundation has been matched by local money to complete the grassroots project.
The new fund will receive £12 million a year from the Premier League and the FA, while the government will contribute £10 million a year through Sport England which is funded by lottery money.
The expansion of the remit of the funding, to include coaching initiatives, is a new departure for the Football Foundation which has generally only used its support for physical infrastructure projects. There is a hope that it will create stronger links and reinvigorate clubs’ Football in the Community programmes throughout the country.
While the PR spin has been positive, the announced funding is actually a decrease from the original funding plan for the Football Foundation at launch, when each of the three partners agreed to put in £20 million a year. That commitment withered over time with the FA in particular struggling and subsequently reducing its input.
Alex Horne, the FA’s general secretary, said: “The funding that the FA has invested through the Football Foundation has dramatically improved local football facilities up and down the country and is a key part of the FA’s four-year National Game Strategy, a £200 million investment into the grassroots game.
“These enhanced facilities increase opportunities for young people to become involved in football, whether as players or coaches, and it is this work which feeds into helping to produce the next generation of English football talent.
“Our announcement really is an excellent example of how much can be achieved when football’s governing bodies work in partnership with government to deliver a highly efficient investment programme into facilities across the country.”
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