The Football Association [The FA] have today launched a new landmark national strategy to grow and develop grassroots football in England, titled ‘A Thriving Grassroots Game’. and The FA’s overall 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 FA’s 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 nationally by 2028.

Hampshire FA’s new strategy will work collaboratively with The FA’s new strategy which 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

Through the new strategy, the grassroots game will play a pivotal 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 FA’s 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

Hampshire FA has adopted The FA’s grassroots football strategic framework over the four-year period to ensure the needs of the game are met locally.

On the new grassroots strategy, Hampshire FA CEO, Neil Cassar said:

“The new 2024-28 strategy is a vital piece of work to ensure our game continues the upward trajectory it has been on over the past 4 years. Hampshire FA are proud to be part of a national ecosystem which prioritises key areas such as equal opportunities, improving facilities to play, tackling poor behaviour and developing our volunteer networks.

On a local level in Hampshire, we have seen significant growth throughout the last strategy period, and we are confident that our goals and objectives for the next 4 years will yield more of the same.

In early 2024, we consulted over 2,000 members of our grassroots football community to help us make football participation in Hampshire more accessible, rewarding and fulfilling. This has been crucial in driving our local Hampshire FA Grassroots Football Strategy, the full details of which will be shared very soon.

I am confident that the new direction on both national and county level will create opportunities for our game to evolve and thrive”.

On The FA’s new grassroots strategy, FA Director of Football Development, James Kendall, said: “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 County FA’s and 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, The FA has 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% 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.