The Football Foundation is the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

's largest sports charity, channelling funding from the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

The FA The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and ...

and the government (through

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded par ...

) into transforming the landscape of grassroots sport in England.

History

Launched in 2000, the Football Foundation awards grants to grassroots clubs and organisations to help build and refurbish new and existing community sports facilities, such as changing pavilions, natural grass pitches or all-weather playing surfaces, for schools, and local authority facilities or sports clubs. Founded in 2000, the Football Foundation is now the largest sports charity in UK. So far, the foundation has used the investment from partners to award more than 17,600 grants to improve facilities worth more than £708m – including 885 artificial grass pitches, 3,587 natural grass pitches and 1,210 changing facilities. This has attracted an additional £885m of partnership funding – totalling over £1.5bn investment in grassroots football. Through the foundation, the Premier League, The FA and government through Sport England have come together to create the National Football Facilities Strategy (NFFS) that will guide work over the next ten years to transform many more local facilities. Local football facility plans (LFFP) are being created to identify priority projects where demand is greatest, and the impact will be strongest and help stimulate the action required to deliver them.

Ambassadors

* Georgie Bingham *

Dion Dublin Dion Dublin (born 22 April 1969) is an English former professional footballer, television presenter and pundit. He is a club director of Cambridge United. As a player he was a centre-forward, notably playing in the Premier League for Mancheste ...

Graeme Le Saux Graeme Pierre Le Saux ( ; born 17 October 1968) is an English former professional footballer and television pundit. As a versatile left sided player he played most of his career at left back with two spells at Chelsea, Blackburn Rovers, Southamp ...

Gary Neville Gary Alexander Neville (born 18 February 1975) is an English football pundit and former player. He is also a co-owner of English Football League club Salford City. After retiring from football in 2011, Neville went into punditry and was a comm ...

* John Scales *

Ben Shephard Benjamin Peter Sherrington Shephard (born 11 December 1974) is an English television presenter and journalist who is currently employed by ITV. He was a main presenter on the now defunct breakfast programme '' GMTV'' and since April 2014 has ...

Gareth Southgate Gareth Southgate (born 3 September 1970) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a defender and midfielder. He has been the manager of the England national team since 2016. Southgate won the League Cup ...

* Graham Taylor OBE * Dan Walker *

Faye White Faye Deborah White, (born 2 February 1978) is an English former footballer who captained Arsenal Women in the FA Women's Super League and is the longest-serving female captain of England to date. Her Lionesses career spanned 15 years and five ...

Lawrie McMenemy Lawrence McMenemy MBE (born 26 July 1936) is an English retired football coach, best known for his spell as manager of Southampton. He is rated in the ''Guinness Book of Records'' as one of the twenty most successful managers in post-war English ...

Nigel Adkins Nigel Howard Adkins (born 11 March 1965) is an English professional football manager and former player and physiotherapist. Adkins played as a goalkeeper for Tranmere Rovers and Wigan Athletic. He finished his playing career and began his man ...

* James Beattie * Chris Powell *

Hayley McQueen Hayley McQueen (born 9 December 1979 in Manchester, England) is an English TV sports presenter, reporter, RTS award winning producer, and event host. McQueen is a lead anchor on Sky Sports News and currently the presenter of Scottish Premiers ...

* Duncan Watmore

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk Charities based in the United Kingdom Football organisations in England Organisations based in the London Borough of Camden Sports charities Sport in the London Borough of Camden Organizations established in 2000