The FA have launched a new landmark strategy to grow and develop grassroots football in England, titled ‘A Thriving Grassroots Game’.
This follows the announcement of our new four-year strategy, ‘Inspiring Positive Change Through Football’, to take English football forward, with a clear focus on the biggest opportunities and challenges that need to be addressed.
The new four-year grassroots strategy follows the biggest ever consultation process with the grassroots game across England, and is aimed at supporting sustainable growth over the next four years, with projections anticipating a further 220,000 new players across 15,000 new teams by 2028.
The new strategy sets out a clear direction of travel for grassroots football in England and outlines five priority areas, including:
· Improving playing choice and opportunity – To create new and varied playing opportunities to give everyone a chance to play the game, in a way that suits them best
· Deliver equal opportunities for women and girls to play – To ensure every woman and girl who wants to play football has an opportunity to do so in a safe and enjoyable setting and in a way that suits their lifestyle
· Build more, and improve existing, facilities – To increase the quality and quantity of grassroots football pitches and facilities across England, to better meet the demand
· Tackle poor behaviour – To see a decline in cases of poor behaviour of any kind, and to increase reporting of discrimination, ensuring enjoyment is at the forefront of playing, volunteering or officiating grassroots football
· Develop a valued network of volunteers, coaches and referees – To grow the number of grassroots volunteers, coaches and referees, and ensure they all feel valued and supported to fulfil their roles in the game
The FA’s grassroots strategy 2024-2028
Through the new strategy, the grassroots game will play an important role in delivering three of the four FA ‘game-changer’ priorities over the next four years. These are to create equal opportunities for women and girls, transform the pitch landscape nationally and see a game free from discrimination.
The new strategy outlines three key drivers to deliver this:
· Support thriving community clubs – To support a network of thriving community clubs to provide a brilliant football offer to their local communities, to grow in a sustainable way, and to be well-run
· Connect and serve participants – To improve our digital offering and deliver new online services which are personalised, easy to access and help participants to fulfil their roles and find new opportunities
· Progress the game’s governance – To better serve all football participants through the highest governance standards, at all levels in the grassroots game
The strategy has been developed in collaboration with the County FA network, with County FAs adopting the same strategy framework and sharing our strategic priorities over the four-year period to ensure the needs of the game are met locally.
FA CEO, Mark Bullingham, said: “Grassroots football has incredible power to unite communities, improve lives and inspire positive change.
“Over the next four years we will transform the landscape of our grassroots game by investing in more new quality grass pitches to reach our 12,000 target, alongside over 300 new artificial pitches.
“Through our new grassroots strategy, we want to inspire positive change through football by driving equal opportunities for women and girls, improving facilities across the county, tackling unacceptable behaviour and supporting our volunteers, coaches and referees. We have set clear and ambitious targets to focus on the biggest opportunities and challenges.”
FA director of football development, James Kendall, added: “This new strategy has been created for the game, by the game, and is an important moment for the future of grassroots football in England.
“We’ve made significant progress over the last strategy and we are now going even further, investing in more new quality grass pitches, increasing the number of female and disability players, tackling poor behaviours through robust sanctions and promoting positive behaviours, developing thriving community clubs, and growing our valued volunteer network so the game is sustainable in the future.
“We have a clear direction with our new strategy, and with our valued partners we are confident that this will help the grassroots game to thrive for years to come.”
To coincide with the launch of the grassroots strategy, we have also published a new report which sets out that the social and economic value of grassroots football in England equates to £15.9bn to society each year, up from £10.2bn in 2021.
The report, titled “The Social and Economic Value of Grassroots Football in England”, also found grassroots football participation contributes to 324k preventions of disease cases and £3.2bn NHS savings – equivalent to 34.8m A&E visits.
Children who regularly play football are 20 per cent more likely to have met the Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines. In addition, over 1m individuals work and volunteer in grassroots football, contributing £5.8bn to society each year.
