This funding, while a small proportion of The FA’s overall turnover, drives initiatives aimed at tackling inequalities and increasing participation among under-represented groups.
What we've learnt from football
There are different learnings we’ve achieved from these initiatives that are also contributing to Sport England's long-term strategy – Uniting the Movement.
Efforts should be made to keep girls in the sport
Recognising the common challenge of drop-off in girls’ sports participation during teenage years, The FA developed ‘Squad’– a programme that’s designed to be a fun, non-competitive initiative for girls aged 12-14.
This model, which could be replicated across other sports, prioritises enjoyment and social connection, and aims to retain girls in football while building their confidence and leadership skills.
In addition, they have developed a new talent ID programme called Discover My Talent, shifting the way they find and support talented footballers.
The FA’s learnings from this programme highlight that moving away from a traditional approach, focused on existing clubs and academies, enables them to identify potential "anywhere, anytime."
This approach aims to identify talented players across the country, within diverse groups and at any kind of football events and sessions to broadening opportunities across different communities, resulting in more diverse talent pathways for women and girls.
The FA reports that they are seeing positive results, with increased diversity in the top talent programmes.
Increasing opportunities for disabled players
The FA is committed to growing para- and disability football and to closing the disability gap, partly through initiatives like ‘Comets’ – a recreational program for disabled children aged 5-11 that provides fun and accessible entry opportunities to the sport.
While aiming to expand Comets and the provision of disability football, The FA acknowledges challenges such as workforce training, confidence levels of local coaches to support disabled people and logistical barriers to attending sessions – like the time and financial costs of travel – for para-athletes.
In response, The FA are providing disability training and toolkits for clubs, called Journey to Inclusion, with the aim of proactively addressing these challenges.
The FA have identified potential for cross-sector collaboration and knowledge sharing with other system partners to continue to address these difficulties, as well as using football as a hook to engage disabled people and connect them with other sports.
Investing in the workforce to reflect the communities served
As many system partners have told us, local champions have an important role for creating local change.
Recognising the need for a diverse workforce to help diversify participation, The FA is actively working to increase the number of Black and Asian coaches in grassroots football.
And by targeting specific localities and offering more coaching opportunities, The FA aims to create a coaching landscape that reflects the communities it serves.
The role of local partnerships for building a stronger ecosystem
The FA is increasingly working locally, tailoring programmes to the unique needs of different communities.
Their experience is that partnerships with community groups and schools are key to reaching under-represented groups.
Ensuring safeguarding standards when partnering with non-accredited organisations is recognised as a challenge, so they are actively supporting community organisations in developing their safeguarding processes through training and qualifications.
Looking at what's to come
The new Learning Synthesis report based on the year two evaluation report will be published soon with more insights from the ongoing evaluation.
It will also include the collective contributions that partners are making to changing the sport and physical activity system.
We hope this series of blogs have been useful and if you have any comments or questions, we'd love to hear from you, so please get in touch.
