Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support his Department is providing for the provision of girls football at a grassroots level in (a) England and (b) Leicestershire.

Through Sport England, the government is investing £24.6m in The Football Association (The FA) over the course of 2016-21 for its work on grassroots participation, the football
talent pathway, and coaching programmes. Within this, there is no specific ring fencing of funding between men's and women's programmes apart from £2.6m which is specifically reserved for women and girls talent programmes.

In addition, Sport England has awarded The FA £544,500 to date to deliver The FA FIVES, a mass participation five a side football competition for men and women. They have also invested £987,000 to support the infrastructure and opportunities for recreational football in each of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 host cities (London, Manchester, Sheffield, Rotherham, Milton Keynes, Wigan/Leigh, Brighton and Southampton).

Separately, the government has invested £18 million in football facilities through the Football Foundation in each of 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. The Football Foundation has invested £22.95 million in football facilities in the Leicestershire County FA region since 2000. It is not possible to separate out the investment amounts by gender.

We want to see women’s sport continue to thrive. I recently wrote to the Football Association, alongside the other major sport governing bodies, to underline the importance of maintaining the momentum of women’s and girl’s football.