Natalie Jones.

Local and national provision for football

Football is a widely played sport, both internationally and nationally. In Suffolk alone, there are 1401 football teams. The National Governing Body is known as the Football Association (FA). The International Governing Body for football is called FIFA, which stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association.

Funding and sponsorship is a necessity of any team, especially big clubs. Premiership clubs can get money from a number of different things. T.V. channels such as Sky pay a lot of money to get matches on TV. Supporters clubs donate money and the fans pay to watch games. All premiership teams also have sponsors.

Smaller clubs need sponsorship too, such as the biggest team in Suffolk - Ipswich town. Their main sponsor is called E.ON. Local teams also get sponsors. The FA also provides teams with a list of charities on their website which help with funding. Two of these are Football Foundation and Sports England. Football Foundation’s aims are to “provide more schools, clubs and parks with more modern football facilities” (www.footballfoundation.org.uk) and to make football a part of the community.

An important body which is involved in football is the Independent Football Commission (IFC).  They “work closely with fans, clubs and the football authorities, to make sure that the needs of the football community are being met” (www.theifc.co.uk). They do this by making unannounced visits to football clubs to make sure that they are doing what they should be. They check on things such as child protection, disabled football and football in the community. They are important in the provision of football as they ensure that all the needs of the players and supporters are being met.

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The FA has many schemes to keep football a popular and easy access sport in the community, and to give the best opportunities to talented players. It is a very popular sport (Sport England reported that “there are an estimated 42,000 football clubs in the UK”) involving people of all ages and a large amount of young people want to have a career as a professional footballer. However, like any sport, fulfilling this dream is very difficult. In November 1997, the FA decided to create football academies to help those talented footballers get recognised. One of their aims was to ...

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