Written evidence submitted by The Football Foundation
The Football Foundation was established 24 years ago as a partnership between the Premier League, The FA and Government through Sport England to support grassroots football in England. Our grant investment delivers multi-sport facilities prioritised by community impact, and our mission is to ensure every community has a great place to play, regardless of gender, race, disability or place.
We’re responding to this inquiry to outline the progress we’ve made so far, as well as what will be required moving forward, towards achieving that mission.
After nearly a quarter of a century experience delivering community sports facilities, we know that grassroots sport can make a significant contribution to the Government’s missions by transforming lives and strengthening communities
However, none of the benefits of community sport can be realised without a great place to play. Our response is therefore focussed on the importance of facilities, looking at three areas in particular:
Community sport:
Over many years, the quality and availability of community sports facilities has been a challenge in England. A combination of pressure on local authority budgets and historic selling of playing fields has created a difficult environment which the Foundation and its key funding partners have been working hard to address.
Through our grant investment into new and improved facilities, especially 3G pitches and grass pitch improvements, we are beginning to turn the tide. Thanks to the ongoing support of our funding partners, the Foundation has invested £1.2 billion since 2000, which has delivered or improved over 1,200 3G pitches, 14,000 grass pitches and 1,500 changing rooms. This has been combined with smaller projects, such as goalposts, fencing and portable floodlights, to provide grassroots clubs with whatever support they need to create more opportunities for more people to play.
However, the brilliant growth in demand for the game, particularly among women and girls, is outpacing our ability to supply the necessary facilities, leading to the following shortfall in community sports facilities across England:
Grass pitches:
Good quality grass pitches are vital for grassroots football – around 90% of the affiliated game is played on grass. However, pitch quality is consistently the biggest issue clubs face. Last season alone, over 100,000 grassroots football matches were postponed because of poor pitch quality. That’s the equivalent of six million minutes of football lost in one year alone.
To help get the country’s grass pitches match fit and help more matches go ahead, the Foundation has set the target of reaching 12,000 ‘good’[1] quality grass pitches across England by 2028 and are investing £21 million a season to reach this goal.
Thanks to the funding we receive from the Premier League, The FA and the Government through Sport England, we’re already over halfway towards reaching this goal, with 8,500 pitches currently rated ‘good’ or higher but there’s still much left to do to get England’s pitches looking and playing their best.
3G pitches:
In a country where the climate means lots of rain and cold weather, it's essential to have an alternative to grass pitches to ensure matches and training sessions do go ahead and people are able to enjoy the games they play in.
3G pitches are a vital asset to grassroots football as they can be played on whatever the weather or time of day. On average, a well-maintained 3G pitch can host 70-80 hours of play a week, compared to 4-6 hours a week on a grass pitch, depending on the weather.
In 2024, the Foundation invested in delivering over 100 3G pitches, but despite this (according to our own facilities data):
Not only do these shortfalls prevent people from enjoying playing the game, but they also get in the way of all the off-pitch benefits of playing football. After 24 years’ experience in delivering community sports facilities, we know that grassroots sport can make a significant contribution to the Government’s missions by:
To identify the facility improvements required to address the shortfalls outlined above, we’ve created Local Football Facility Plans for every local authority in England in partnership with local authorities, County FAs and other community stakeholders. Collectively, these Plans act as a blueprint of the supply and demand of community sports facilities across the country.
Thanks to the funding we receive from our funding partners – the Premier League, The FA and the Government through Sport England – we’re currently just over a third of the way through delivering all these Plans. However, the rise in construction costs and growth in demand for grassroots football, particularly among women and girls, has meant our initial pipeline is being outpaced by projected participation growth.
We’re currently in the process of refreshing these Plans to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to support the growth in all areas and formats of the game, and to ensure our investment supports sport beyond football alone.
By June this year, we’ll have published a new Plan for every local authority in England, which will give us an up-to-date picture of the projects required to provide every community with a great place to play. We’ll write to the Committee once these new Plans have been published to provide an outline of all the facilities required to address the shortfalls in community sport across the country.
If we are to deliver this new pipeline of much-needed projects, these three things will be vital:
The Foundation has been fortunate to have received sustained funding from its three partners, including several successful governments. It’s vital this trend continues and at the value needed to meet rising demand if we are to truly unlock the power of pitches to deliver the Government’s missions.
We were enormously grateful for the Government’s confirmation of our funding until April 2025, announced immediately after the 2024 Men’s UEFA EURO, and the Culture Secretary’s promise to add “rocket boosters” to our work. We were also pleased to see the Government’s commitment in the Autumn Budget to “supporting elite and grassroots sport by investing in multi-use facilities across the UK”.
We’re full speed ahead with using this funding to deliver the facilities every community needs but have yet to receive formal confirmation of our funding level for the next financial year from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). This would be welcome at the earliest opportunity as it would greatly help to avoid potentially costly delays in delivering our pipeline of projects and would ensure communities across the country are able to lace up their boots on Foundation-funded sites as quickly as possible.
Focussing on the women’s and girls’ game in particular, last year the Government and The FA provided a £30 million cash injection towards The Lionesses Futures Fund, which will see 30 state-of-the-art 3G pitches open across England. Every one of these gold standard sites, which are well on their way to being delivered, will prioritise access for women and girls through reserved peak-time slots, women and girls-only evenings and priority booking.
We strongly believe that The Lionesses Futures Fund shouldn’t end with these 30 sites. The growth of the women’s and girls’ game has shown no sign of slowing. In fact, The FA estimate that one in five grassroots football teams will be female by 2030. With another international tournament on the horizon, it’s vital that women and girls inspired by the Lionesses have safe, accessible and welcoming facilities to follow in their heroes’ footsteps.
We also have several programmes targeted at addressing long-standing inequalities in physical activity rates, which will not be able to continue without sustained government investment. For example, we plan to deliver over 200 Football Foundation PlayZones across the country to provide safe, inclusive and accessible facilities to play football and a whole range of other sports in inner-city areas where activities rates are typically lower than other parts of the country (more detail in our response to question 4).
Similarly, our Active Through Football programme has helped to engage over 7,000 people facing the greatest barriers to physical activity in 25 areas of the country by taking a place-based approach that’s tailored to the needs of local communities (more detail in our response to question 4). Additional government funding would enable us to expand these programmes even further and deliver even more of the fantastic benefits they’re having from the roots up.
Ahead of England co-hosting UEFA EURO 28, we have an exciting opportunity to make a transformative difference to grassroots football, enabling more communities than ever to enjoy all the benefits of playing the nation’s favourite game. The Comprehensive Spending Review set for Spring 2025 will be a great opportunity for the Government to make a sustained high-level funding commitment to our work which covers the period leading up to and beyond this tournament.
We work hard to ensure the money we receive from our funding partners is spent in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible. As the Chancellor has stated on several occasions, it’s crucial that public money is used to unlock other sources of funding outside of the public purse.
The Foundation’s funding model is predicated on local matched funding contributions on an individual project basis. This averages at around a 65-70% grant contribution from the Foundation, paired with 30-35% contributions from local stakeholders, including local authorities, County FAs, and grassroots sports clubs. This has enabled us to unlock an additional £1.4 billion – totalling over £2.6 billion total investment into grassroots football since 2000.
To ensure this investment is cost effective and sustainable in the long term, we also use our grant funding to support the financial sustainability of grassroots football clubs. Through our Home Advantage programme, we plan to support the transfer of the ownership and maintenance of football pitches from local authorities to grassroots clubs and organisations across the country. So far, 20 projects have signed up to the first year of the programme, which has given them access to:
Football taking control of pitches will not only enable clubs to cement their place in the community, but will also provide them with the long-term security required to maximise their impact.
This year, the Foundation will also make funding available for catering cabins to enable grassroots clubs to generate their own income. Any money generated by these facilities will be re-invested back into the maintenance of their sites, helping clubs to become self-sufficient and enabling our money to go further for longer.
It’s also important that we avoid, where possible, investing in the same facility more than once. Since 2000, clubs and organisations who have received funding from the Foundation have been advised to put away funds to ensure they have adequate monies to replace their 3G pitch surface when it becomes too worn. This is typically after 10-12 years.
In March 2024, we introduced an additional requitement for applicants to join the Pitch Replacement Programme. This involves making a mandatory contribution to ensure they have adequate funds to replace their 3G pitch once it’s no longer fit for purpose, helping to improve the long-term sustainability of our investment.
In terms of our application processes, our Local Football Facility Plans allow us to take a proactive and strategic approach to identifying the community sports facilities projects that will have the greatest impact in the areas where they’re needed most.
Each project we identify is assigned a dedicated team of regional Foundation staff members, who guide applicants through the application process, helping to develop potential projects to ensure they’ll have the greatest impact possible, including benefitting other sports and supporting under-represented groups.
After an application for higher value grant funding has been submitted, every project goes through rigorous analysis and review to identify any potential risks and assess value for money. For smaller grants, such as goalposts, fencing or portable floodlights, we’ve recently launched a new application portal, helping to make the process as easy and efficient as possible for grassroots clubs and organisations to apply for funding.
We’re also currently enhancing our post-award assurance process to ensure the facilities we fund meet their grant requirements, delivering maximum value for money and the best possible outcomes. This includes regular pre-opening meetings to set facilities up for success, real-time usage data to monitor performance against original objectives, and tailored support tools and meetings to maximise the sport and social outcomes of our investments.
Without the time, energy and enthusiasm provided by over 1.4 million volunteers involved in grassroots football across the country, the facilities we fund wouldn’t deliver the transformative impact we know they can have.
To make sure volunteers are getting the credit and thanks they deserve, the Foundation is championing the hours of hard work they put in across our website and social media channels, with tips and tricks to support them with work such as pitch maintenance and dealing with poor weather. We also run the Football Foundation Groundskeeping Community, which is an online platform where volunteers can exchange knowledge, advice and support on how to perform their vital roles.
Over the last 24 years, we’ve learnt that the traditional “build it and they will come” approach to tackling inequalities in physical activity levels can only do so much. To ensure the best outcomes possibles, the communities that’ll use the facilities need be involved from the onset in their development.
To ensure that the needs and preferences of local communities are at the heart of the projects we fund, we’ve created a Community Engagement Toolkit, which we share with all our applicants to guide them through the process of gathering the views of their communities. Ensuring that every project that we fund has been designed in conjunction with its local community is now a mandatory requirement for any application for Foundation funding.
There are two Foundation programmes in particular which highlight the importance of this community engagement:
Football Foundation PlayZones:
PlayZones are small-sided multi-sport facilities that are designed with, and shaped by, the communities using them. Where each PlayZone is located, what sports it’s used for and how it’s designed is shaped by local people who step onto the pitch and get active in a way that suits them – whether that be with a ball, a hoop, or a wicket.
The PlayZone at Concord Youth Centre in Birmingham, which opened in September 2024, is a great example of the impact these facilities can have by providing places to play that local communities can have a sense of ownership over.
Delivered thanks to £169k grant from the Foundation and additional £60k from EA SPORTS™, this PlayZone was designed based on the views of over 900 local residents representing a cross-section of the local area. Based on this engagement, the pitch has been designed to host both football and basketball as well as a range of recreational activities like dance and Zumba classes. Within five years of opening, the pitch is expected to be used by over 700 people every month across these activities.
Active Through Football:
Funded by the National Lottery through Sport England, and delivered by the Foundation, the Active Through Football programme is helping to engage those facing the greatest barriers to grassroots sport by taking a place-based approach that’s tailored to the needs of local communities.
This has included Active Women in Leicester, which is a project specifically aimed at women aged 18 to 62, predominately from Somali and South Asian communities in the St Matthews and St Peters wards of Leicester.
The project started out as a group of women playing Rounders in Spinney Hill Park and now delivers 12 sessions a week covering football, coffee and exercise classes and music sessions. Here’s what one of the participants, Mez, has to say about the project:
"I was born and brought up in India and was really sporty as a child. Since I came here 25 years ago, there wasn't much opportunity for me to go out or get involved in any activities. I was at home most of the time and never wanted to get out of bed.
“Since I started coming to these sessions, I feel really happy and it boost my confidence a lot. It helped me with my depression and these women have become my family. Now in my mind, I feel like I can do anything".
Through actively engaging with communities that need our investment the most, our funding is able to tackle long-standing inequalities in physical activity and health outcomes, contributing to the breaking down of barriers at every stage.
First impressions matter, so it’s vital that children and young people enjoy their first experience of sport in school to help them develop a good base of physical literacy as well as a positive relationship with physical activity throughout their adult life.
Without quality and accessible facilities that are welcoming to all, this won’t be possible. That’s why the Foundation has directed a fifth of our total grant investment to date, worth over £350 million, into improving facilities in schools, colleges and universities.
However, it’s often the case that new schools apply for funding from the Foundation towards sports facilities shortly after opening. It’d be far more cost-efficient and effective if the provision of these facilities was considered within the initial project design of new schools. We’d therefore like to see DCMS work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education to review and enforce existing minimum standards for the provision of sports facilities within new school developments. This would ensure students across the country have access to quality places to play, both within and outside the curriculum.
We were supportive of the Government’s commitment to taking a more balanced approach to OFSTED reviewing of schools. We’d strongly urge that any new approach consider ways in which to incentivise schools to maximise the potential impact of their sports facilities and to more formally assess and report their sport provision.
Combined, these measures would help improve ensure every child has regular access to quality sports facilities throughout their time in education, therefore helping to form positive relationships with sport and physical activity which last well into adulthood.
There are several targeted community programmes from external providers making a significant difference to encouraging under-represented groups to take part in school, about which the Committee will no doubt learn through this inquiry.
However, ultimately none of them will have their intended effect without access to quality facilities designed based on the views of local people. As set out in our response to question 4, community engagement is at the heart of the projects we deliver. This applies no less to school sports facilities developments.
The needs and preferences of children and young people from under-represented groups needs to be considered in the design of school sports facilities from the onset of their development, rather than being an afterthought after they’ve opened. This is the best way to ensure those people are engaged and encouraged to take part in sport and develop healthy relationships with physical activity.
A problem we often face when trying to deliver sports facilities projects within education settings is a reluctance from schools to allow community access beyond the curriculum.
This is often due to the strain on school budgets and the additional maintenance operational management that’s required to support more extensive usage.
However, investment in grassroots football and multi-sport facilities within school settings can often be the optimal solution within the local context. Foundation-funded facilities provide a dual benefit of meeting both educational and community needs for sport, due to the complimentary usage times. All the facilities we fund are required to host extensive community usage, underpinned by rigorous community engagement, as it’s vital that the facilities we fund don’t sit empty for long periods of time and are instead used for the maximum benefit both within and outside of school hours.
The projects we deliver also come with the benefit of providing a safe space for under-represented groups that would not typically be engaged with sporting activity. Our insight shows that sports facilities within school settings spaces are more familiar to these groups and are therefore perceived as more welcoming than a typical grassroots sports facility. This applies particularly to those users who are looking to become active for the first time and are seeking to avoid what they believe would be an intimidating environment.
The Foundation would urge the Government to further develop Active Partnerships’ programme Opening School Facilities programme, to help open up even more school sports facilities and create hubs for sport that serve both students and the local community.
The opening up of school sports facilities for community usage can play an important role in this area. Rather than having to travel to a new place in what can be perceived as an intimidating environment (more detail in our response to question 6), hosting community sport within school settings enables people looking to get involved for the first time to return to familiar spaces in which they feel comfortable and welcome.
We believe the Foundation is an effective and unique partnership between the top English football league, the sport’s national governing body and the Government – all coming together to support the game from the roots up.
It’s because of this partnership that the Foundation has been able to transform lives and strengthen communities across the country over the last 24 years, proving how effectively sport can bring together key stakeholders across the sector. It’s vital that this partnership is continued moving forward to help achieve our ambition of ensuring every community has a great place to play.
We’d encourage the further use among local government of our Local Football Facility Plans alongside Playing Pitch Strategies as a proactive tool to allow local authorities to take a more strategic approach to their sports facilities provision across the community and school networks.
Community sport has the power to make a significant contribution across each of the Government’s five missions, which is why we think there’s significant scope for the Foundation to work more closely with other government departments to maximise our impact across the country.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC):
Sport and physical activity are under-utilised enablers to tackling the causes of ill health and building an NHS fit for the future. According to research from The FA, over 15 million people across England play football regularly, which represents over a quarter of the population.[6] This is an enormous and growing cohort of people who we know will be regularly visiting their local pitch to play the nation’s favourite game.
Rather than expecting these people to go out of their way to visit hospitals, clinics or surgeries, bringing the care to them within an environment where they feel familiar, comfortable and surrounded by their peers could significantly improve uptake.
For example, in 2022 Everton FC’s community foundation, Everton in the Community (EitC), opened a new Mental Health Hub thanks to a £500k grant from the Foundation. Located a stone’s throw away from Goodison Park, “The People’s Place” is the first purpose-built mental health and wellbeing centre attached to a Premier League football club.
In just two years, the site has been visited by 150,000 participants, ranging from 0 to 105-years old, who’ve taken part in a range of physical activity programmes aimed at improving mental health and promoting suicide prevention. The site’s association to Everton FC and its proximity to the Club’s stadium have been crucial to engaging people who otherwise might have avoided the kind of support offered at the site.
Given our long track-record of working with successive governments to deliver physical and wellbeing benefits through grassroots sport, we’d welcome the opportunity to work with DHSC to explore ways in which to incorporate care into more of the facilities we fund – specifically opportunities to co-locate primary care facilities onsite alongside community sport.
Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA):
While we’re in agreement with DEFRA on the importance of protecting and enhancing natural habitats, not least playing fields, there are concerns within the sports sector regarding the unintended consequences of the Government’s Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) policy on community sports facilities projects.
BNG requirements were originally conceived for large-scale developments and therefore do not take into account smaller-scale community sports facilities projects. This leads to the addition of substantial costs, delays and uncertainty to the delivery of much-needed investment. This effect is being felt in some areas of the country more than others, which is exacerbating already existing regional inequalities in physical activity rates.
We’d welcome the opportunity to work with DEFRA to discuss additional ways in which biodiversity can be incorporated into sports facilities to protect both the natural and sporting environment across the country.
Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG):
We are supportive of the Government’s commitment to reforming planning system to drive economic growth.
The planning process as it stands has caused significant delays to the delivery of our projects. For example, the average time taken for one of our 3G pitch projects to go through the planning process over the course of last year was 22 weeks, almost double the 13-week statutory period for the determination of major applications. There’s also large variance within this figure, with some projects taking multiple years to receive planning permission.
We’d welcome the opportunity to support MHCLG with these reforms to help unlock even more investment to the areas that need it the most.
His Majesty’s Treasury:
Currently, many Foundation-funded projects incur large VAT bills, which can be prohibitive for smaller community sports organisations who may have difficulty sourcing the additional funding required to meet these costs.
Not only is this at odds with the broader construction industry, in which new build houses are exempt from VAT, it also means a significant proportion of the government investment we receive is being recycled back into the tax system.
Given the significant savings provided by community sports facilities projects in the form of healthier lives and stronger communities, we’d encourage the Treasury to make these projects zero-rated moving forward. This would enable the public money we receive to go further and have an even greater benefit on communities across the country.
In summary, community sport is about more than just a game. As the Culture Secretary pointed out during her first session in front of the Committee, sport makes an important contribution to four of the Government’s five missions. A sector this effective in supporting the Government’s ambitions deserves the focus and attention afforded by this inquiry.
None of this potential can be realised without a great place to play, and so the starting point for maximising the impact of community sport must be facilities. As outlined above, the Foundation has nearly a quarter of a century’s worth of experience in delivering quality, welcoming and accessible sports facilities across England. Over that time, we’ve developed the knowledge, partnerships and capacity to truly unlock the power of pitches to transform lives and strengthen communities.
By the start of next season, we’ll have an accurate and up-to-date blueprint of the facility improvements that each community needs and deserves across the country. Continued investment from all our partners, including the Government, and the removal of unintended barriers that create delays and costs are the final pieces in the puzzle required to deliver our ultimate goal of healthier lives and stronger communities with a great place to play.
[1] According to pitch quality assessment criteria created by the Grounds Management Association.
[2] The Football Association (2024). The Social and Economic Value of Grassroots Football In England. Available upon request.
[3] Sport England (2018). The Social and Economic Value of Community Sport and Physical Activity in England. Available here.
[4] The Football Association (2024). The Social and Economic Value of Grassroots Football In England. Available upon request.
[5] The Football Association (2024). The Social and Economic Value of Grassroots Football In England. Available upon request.
[6] The Football Association (2024). The Social and Economic Value of Grassroots Football In England. Available upon request.