Football Charities Hit £1bn Landmark
The Football Foundation and Football Stadia Improvement Fund have reached a landmark of £1 billion to support grassroots projects.
The investment plans on funding such football initiatives as facility projects, providing over 230,000 youths with football strips and equipment, community, education and health schemes; social inclusion schemes and anti-racism programmes; projects for women and girls, and over 1,000 football stadia improvement project.
The funds come from a partnership between the Football Stadia Improvement Fund (FSIF) and the Football Foundation, which is the UK’s largest sports charity. Each year, it invests £40m provided by the Premier League, The FA and Government into building better community sports facilities and programmes that aim to increase participation and address various issues from obesity to cutting crime.
The FSIF continues the work of the Football Trust by providing £5m each year towards the cost of football stadia for Football League and Non League football clubs. Both The Football Foundation and FSIF were established in July 2000. Together, they have now invested £435m into nearly 8,000 projects.
‘Local grass roots sports facilities across the country are generally in a poor state and the Premier League, The FA and Government deserve huge credit for joining forces to tackle decades of underinvestment by funding the Football Foundation and FSIF,’ Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation and the FSIF, said.
‘In order to meet the challenge of increasing participation in sport it is essential that we continue to build better facilities. Our research shows that participation in grass roots football has increased by an average of 21% across Football Foundation funded facilities, with an average 14% increase in participation in other sports. With a healthier, more active population, we will also be better placed to address other issues, such as the increasing trend of obesity.’
