The Football Foundation is the United Kingdom’s largest sports charity, investing £40m into communities each year thanks to money provided by its funding partners the Premier League, The FA and the Government. The Foundation was launched by the then Prime Minister Rt Hon Tony Blair MP and then England Manager Kevin Keegan from the garden of Number Ten Downing Street in July 2000.
In its first eight years since its launch the Foundation has supported over 5,800 projects worth more than £720m and kitted out 230,000 budding footballers or disabled adults through its Junior Kit Scheme. The Football Foundation awards grants to applicants that go towards building new local sports facilities, such as changing rooms, grass or all-weather football pitches or multi-use games areas for schools, local authority facilities or sports clubs. The Football Foundation also provides grants that fund community schemes that increase participation in football and other sports, often using the activity as a vehicle to help address wider issues in society.
For example the Foundation has funded Coping Through Football which using regular football sessions to provide structure and raise the self-esteem of sufferers of mental illness. Similarly it funds and manages Kickz, which uses activities like football, basketball, street dance or DJ-ing to engage disaffected young people in the most deprived estates and helps to create a safer society. Operating three night a week, 48 weeks a year, Kickz is a partnership between the Foundation, the Premier League, the Metropolitan Police (and other local constabularies), v and the professional football clubs that deliver the sessions on the ground.
The Football Foundation’s Junior Kit Scheme provides teams for Under-18s and adults with learning disabilities with £400 of free Nike football strips and equipment. The scheme is fronted by Ambassadors England and Arsenal forward Theo Walcott, as well as England and Arsenal Ladies defender Faye White.