Local and National Provision - Football

AS and A Level Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Local and National Provision- Football

In the U.K football is the largest participation sport, at all age groups. In this essay I am going to explain the complex hierarchy from grass roots level to international representation.

The hierarchy is as follows:

At the bottom of the hierarchy are those who play purely for their personal enjoyment, or just to keep fit. Whilst at the top we have those who are at a representational level, like playing for country.

All competitive football in the U.K is run by the F.A. The F.A is the national governing body for football in the U.K. Other bodies around U.K include Nationwide Football League, Football Association Ireland and Scottish Football Association.

The Football Association is the governing body of football in England. Formed in 1863, The F.A. is the oldest football governing body in the world. Today, it exists to develop and promote the game to men and women, boys and girls, of any race or creed, throughout the country. The F.A organises competions throught England, and develops laws of the sport.

UEFA

One of UEFA's responsibilities as a confederation of world football's governing body FIFA is to organise and stage European competitions for clubs and national teams. In total, 13 competitions are currently organised by UEFA, with nine for national representative teams and four for clubs.

FIFA

FIFA is committed by its Statutes not only to the positive promotion of football through development programmes, but also to supervising international competitions and to safeguarding the sport and its good image against abuse of its rules and regulations. And FIFA sees to it that the game is played to one unified set of rules, the Laws of the Game, all over the world.

Funding: Football Foundation

Football and Government teamed up in July 2000 to launch a brand new body to deliver a multi-million pound investment programme for football's grass roots. The Football Foundation is based on a funding partnership of the FA Premier League, the Football Association, Government, the New Opportunities Fund and Sport England. In its first year alone £24 million was available for investment in the game, rising to £60 million per annum from Year Two.

Three-quarters of the total budget (ie. £45 million per annum from Year Two) is devoted to the grass roots, improving pitches and changing facilities at our schools and in the parks. A further £7.5 million is available for new community and education projects, such as study support centres, community coaching schemes and social inclusion initiatives.

The Foundation's sister body, the Football Stadia Improvement Fund (FSIF), continues to support (at £7.5 million pa) a programme of stadia safety and improvement work in the lower leagues as well as funding the next generation of stadia, including better provision for disabled fans, ...

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With this new funding partnership, the Foundation aims to mirror the transformation we have seen in the quality of our league grounds, by making our grass roots facilities the envy of Europe, if not the world. The Football foundation had the following goals:

To put in place a new generation of modern football facilities in parks, local leagues and schools;

To provide revenue support for the running of grass roots football;
To strengthen the links between football and the community and to harness its potential as a force for good in society;
To provide funding through (FSIF) for improvements to football grounds at the lower levels, delivering modern family and community facilities and facilities for people with disabilities;
To revolutionize the whole funding process for grass roots football.

Grass Roots Advisory Group (GRAG)

GRAG will advise the Board on policy and initiatives to promote grass roots football, to provide more and better facilities and ensure their optimum use. It will have a key part to play in creating the right framework for grassroots development:

Ensuring that Local Football Partnerships are effective, involving all the interested parties including County FAs, Government agencies, local authorities, schools, regional offices of Sport England, local sports councils and local clubs;
Establishing, maintaining and promoting the Register of English Football Facilities (REFF) as a tool in the development of cohesive facility strategies and investment programmes;
Reviewing applications and considering recommendations by the FA's National Game Board on the appropriate level of grant aid and grant conditions having regard to public accountability;
Recommending criteria for national standards of facilities.

Youth Football Development

The Youth Football Development programme assists the 72 football league clubs in setting up academies and centres of excellence to develop the talents of local young people. The scheme will help develop talent from previously untapped sources and give young people the chance to fulfill their potential as footballers.

The Youth Football Development prgoramme has been on-line for about nine months. The new strategy emphasises how the programme links closely with the aims and objectives of World Class Start in that the programme intends to identify and nurture young players who have the potential to go on to be top class sports people, and it, therefore falls under the World Class programme.

The remaining costs are then divided equally between the FA Premier League and the Sport England Lottery Fund. The FA Premier League is match funding the programme pound for pound with Sport England's allocation of Lottery money. £20 million of Lottery money has been allocated to the programme until 2002. A decision will then be made as to whether the Sport England Lottery Fund will continue to support the scheme thereafter.

Local opportunity and Provision

At local level there are many clubs, either Sunday league or training lessons at local leisure centres, available. Pretty much all area has their own team, e.g. ‘Twyford Comets’ or ‘Lower Earley Predators’. My previous club was part of the Berkshire Chiltern League, in which one game a week was organised over a 9-month period. On average there was between 10-12 teams in each league, who would compete against each other, in the league, but there was also a cup in the league I Played in. This included many teams around Berkshire and consisted of a straight knockout tournament. I think the setting up of such leagues is beneficial as many young people around, especially my area, are keen sportsmen and footballers. My local leisure centre also introduced mini soccer, run under the guidance of the Football Association, it has been devised to meet the needs of children and provide a more appropriate introduction than the 11-a-side game. Mini Soccer provides a competitive environment for children to learn to play a team game, to play to rules, to play to win and to understand the game. Mini Soccer is played on smaller pitches with bigger goals; this gives the children more involvement. Unfortunately there was no opportunity for anyone older to get involved in any sort of football activity, but a Lower Earley men’s football has been put together, which they may join.

There is very little provision in the field of football for disabled people but initiatives like The Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI) seeks to counter these issues by:

"ensuring that disabled people can access inclusive fitness equipment in a targeted number of local authority facilities, thereby significantly increasing opportunities for sports specific conditioning and training and improving general levels of health and fitness."

They hope to do this in a number of ways including enabling disabled people to access inclusive fitness equipment in up to a maximum of 30 public sector facilities, appropriately train a body of disabled and non-disabled fitness staff within these public sector facilities, to maximise the benefits to disabled people of using fitness equipment. Pro-actively promote and market the availability of inclusive fitness equipment for disabled people, the aged and people temporarily disabled and raise the profile and value of sport, health and fitness amongst disabled people and particularly non-active disabled people.

The Birmingham County Football Development Scheme, Girls and Women's section, is continuing to grow rapidly. Women's football is the number one sport in the country for females, with more than 60,000 registered players. This number is still growing and with all the support that the Football Association give to promoting the sport the numbers will continue to grow for many years to come. Within the Development Scheme our aim is to offer girls of all ages and abilities the chance to play football within their local area. We are actively involved in school programmes across the city, working closely within the community to promote club links and give girls the opportunities to further their footballing career within F.A Coaching Centers and Centers of Excellence. In areas especially Birmingham within the Development Scheme there had been a good working relationships with many Primary and Secondary schools. They offer Curriculum and after school sessions to all schools in the Birmingham area and are currently promoting schemes in the Black Country. There main aim is to offer Girls football to as many schools as possible.

Centres of Excellence

A Centre of Excellence is the pinnacle of girl’s football in the county; there will be four Centres running by September 2002. They are Coventry City, Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and newly formed Aston Villa; these Centres are for the elite players within the area who have been assessed on their technical ability and attitude. The Centres of Excellence are the level of playing that all girls in the county should be aiming for.