MAKING STRATEGIC PROGRESS

The FA has published its first progress report on its Inspiring Positive Change Through Football strategy for 2024-2028. Covering the strategy’s first full year, it shows how the game is thriving, but challenges remain on participation and inclusion

The Football Association (FA) has reported strong early progress for the first year of its 2024-2028 strategy, Inspiring Positive Change Through Football. The report, covering the 2024-25 season, highlights major advances in grassroots infrastructure, women and girls’ football and commercial revenues, while acknowledging that significant work remains to tackle discrimination, improve access and sustain participation growth across all communities.

The governing body’s report marks the first formal assessment of its four-year strategy, which is built around four priorities: winning tournaments, creating a game free from discrimination, providing equal opportunities for women and girls, and transforming England’s pitch landscape.

Grassroots investment exceeds targets

Among the clearest successes identified by the FA is its progress on facilities. The organisation reported that it exceeded its target for “quality grass pitches” during the first year of the strategy, with more than 9,600 pitches that meet the FA quality standards now available nationwide, surpassing its target of 8,840. According to the FA, this capacity supports up to 18,000 additional grassroots matches each week.

Meanwhile, the number of 3G pitches (of all sizes) that either received upgrades – from resurfaceprojects and new goalposts to lighting – or were new installations stood at 1,900, enabling “around 50,000 grassroots matches every week”.

The report also points to continued Government support, with £82 million allocated to the Football Foundation for 2025-26. For a governing body that has repeatedly identified poor facilities as one of the biggest barriers to participation and retention, the scale of infrastructure delivery represents a significant early milestone.

Women’s and girls’ football continues to grow

The FA’s Reaching Higher strategy for women and girls also appears to be generating momentum. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of female teams increased by 14.3%, while the Barclays Girls’ Football School Partnership now reaches more than 90% of schools, providing equal football access through PE lessons to 2.6 million girls. The FA also completed applications for its Lioness Futures Fund programme, which will see 35 new 3G pitches and female-friendly facilities being delivered across England. As the fund has concluded its grant cycle, it has been succeeded by the Lionesses HERe to Play Fund. This active follow-up programme provides smaller grassroots grants (ranging from £1,500 to £25,000) to help local clubs create brand-new female teams or upgrade existing local structures to be female-inclusive.

Participation data from outside the annual report supports the view that the women’s game is growing. Sport England data shows that women’s football participation has risen substantially over the past decade, while the FA’s own figures shows that girls’ football participation has more than doubled since 2020-21.

The FA’s own figures shows that girls’ football participation has more than doubled since 2020-21

The continued success of the Lionesses has undoubtedly helped. The report highlights England’s successful defence of the UEFA Women’s EURO title in 2025, alongside growing commercial interest in the women’s game. As an example of the latter, the FA said it had secured its first stand-alone, three- season broadcast deal for the Women’s FA Cup.

“The deal ensures that matches from each round of the Women’s FA Cup are being shown live on TNT Sports and Channel 4,” the FA said. “This new partnership delivers a significant uplift in the number of guaranteed live matches, from three to 19, showing the impressive growth and appeal of the competition.”

Commercial strength supports investment

Financially, the FA remains in a strong position. Although turnover fell from £551 million to £516 million, largely because of anticipated changes to broadcast revenues, the organisation still generated an operating profit of £6 million and reinvested £158 million back into football during the year. The FA says this represents a £12 million increase in investment compared with the previous season.

Record sponsorship levels, long-term broadcast agreements and continued success at Wembley Stadium have given the governing body confidence that it can continue funding its strategic priorities over the remainder of the cycle.

Inclusion remains a major challenge

Perhaps the clearest area where the FA recognises more work is required is discrimination and representation. The annual report highlights the launch of a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and the introduction of mandatory diversity reporting across professional football.

However, the need for these measures reflects the continuing challenges facing the game. Discrimination incidents, under-representation in leadership positions and unequal participation rates among some ethnic and socio-economic groups remain issues that the governing body has committed to addressing during the remainder of the strategy period.

“We hosted the inaugural Pan Football EDI Leadership Summit, which brought together leaders from across English football to help enhance representation, foster inclusion and challenge discrimination in our game,” The FA said. “We also introduced an important landmark new rule to bring in mandatory diversity reporting across English professional football to help drive positive change in representation.”

First-year verdict

The FA’s first progress report presents a largely positive picture. Infrastructure targets have been exceeded, women’s and girls’ football continues to expand, major tournament success has strengthened the profile of the game and commercial performance remains robust enough to support significant reinvestment.

Yet the report also highlights the scale of the task ahead. Participation inequalities persist and the ambition of creating a truly inclusive game remains a long-term challenge rather than a completed objective.

FA Chief Executive, Mark Bullingham, said: “We have already made strong progress across many of our key targets outlined in the strategy. To support our goals, we reinvested £158 million across all levels of the game this year – a £12 million increase on the previous season.

“The pinnacle of the year was the Lionesses historic achievement of winning their second consecutive UEFA Women’s EURO, ending our year with another major trophy.

To support its goals, the FA reinvested £158 million across all levels of the game this year – a £12 million increase on the previous season

“Our strong commercial performance in broadcast and sponsorship, combined with our continued success from events at Wembley Stadium, allows us to invest in our key priorities and infrastructure. Work is already underway to enhance and develop St. George’s Park to ensure it remains a world-class home for England teams and coach development, and we are taking important steps to modernise our digital programmes to improve fan engagement and strengthen the way we serve our game.

“Our achievements and financial performance outlined in this report highlight the strong position of our organisation and of English football as a whole. We are proud of the progress we’ve made across the 2024-25 season, and we remain focused on delivering even greater results in the years ahead.”

For the FA, the first year of the strategy has delivered encouraging progress. The more difficult test will be whether those gains can be sustained and shared more evenly across every part of English football by 2028.