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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what meetings he or Ministers of his Department have had with (a) the Premier League and (b) the FA on the issue of grassroots football in the last twelve months.

Between 2013-2016, The Premier League invested £183 million in total into community school sport, delivering participation programmes and creating new public sports facilities.

In 2016, DCMS agreed that grassroots football will benefit from at least £100 million a year on investment from the Premier League – double the previous commitment. This runs to 2019 and is set out in “Sporting Future” the Government’s strategy for sport.

The £100m a season currently goes to a range of activities, including investment in facilities, school sport, projects that encourage sports participation and tackle social health and wellbeing issues, that support disability and girls football, diversity and anti-racism programmes, player welfare and to organisations that give a voice to fans.

Further information on all Premier League grassroots activities can be found in their published annual report ‘available at www.premierleague.com/this-is-pl/the-communities

DCMS Ministers continue to meet with the EPL and FA on a regular basis to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure that the grassroots benefits from a healthy proportion of the broadcast rights revenue generated by the Premier League and any commercial surplus made by the FA.