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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support grassroots (a) women's and (b) girls' football.

The Government is committed to supporting every aspect of women’s sport and ensuring all women and girls, no matter their background, have access to high quality sport including football.

We are pleased to see the significant progress in the number of women and girls taking up football in recent years, and wider developments in the women’s game. In 2023, Karen Carney OBE published a major Independent Review of Women’s Football which made a series of recommendations including supporting grassroots women and girls’ football. This Government fully endorses those recommendations and looks forward to ensuring tangible progress is made.

The Government has set out its support for grassroots facilities, including through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities programme which provides funding to build and improve grassroots facilities and a commitment to support the Football Association’s ambition to double their number of gold-standard (3-star) community clubs by EURO 2028. This will deliver more opportunities for women and girls to get on the pitch.

The Football Association is a long-term partner of Sport England, and have received over £26 million of funding from them for the period 2022-27.