Sport England to invest £120m in boosting diversity at grassroots

Sport England has revealed plans to invest £120 million in boosting diversity at grassroots level to offer more and improved opportunities to all young people to “explore and develop their potential”.

The funding is aimed at increasing and enhancing opportunities for talented young athletes in England to explore and develop their athletic potential – regardless of their background or financial circumstances. It’ll support athletes starting out in grassroots environments, as well as those already on talent pathways – formal high-performance sport programmes – and will be available for the 2025 to 2029 funding cycle.

The funding is being delivered by Sport England’s existing partnerships with more than 70 sports organisations, which includes the “turbo-charging” of the Backing the Best programme, run by SportsAid, with a further £1.5m of National Lottery funding.

SportsAid research from 2022 showed it typically costs more than £6,600 a year for young athletes to develop their sporting potential.

Sport England CEO, Tim Hollingsworth, said: “Affluence and activity levels are often closely linked; the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to be active. This starts at a grassroots level and goes right up to high-performance sport. We believe that all talented young athletes should have the opportunity to reach the Olympics or Paralympics.”