As the FA’s Big Football Day returns this summer, The National Lottery has announced its continued investment to support the initiative.
The project focuses on grassroots sports and will offer more opportunities for women and girls across the country to get involved in football during UEFA Women’s EURO 2025.
Sue Day, Director of Women’s Football at The FA, highlighted the power of a major tournament to unite the nation and inspire participation.
She said: “Big Football Day powered by The National Lottery will be at the heart of The FA’s plans to capture the EURO 2025 spirit at home and encourage women and girls of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to give football a go.”
Since it was launched in 1994, the National Lottery has now invested over £5.7bn into community sport and helped people live active lives. This has been used to build facilities, maintain playing fields and increase opportunities for millions of people.
The latest initiative is an extension of The National Lottery’s long-standing support and £65m commitment to grow women and girls’ football over the last decade, which also provided funding for The FA’s UEFA EURO Legacy Programme after the tournament in 2022.
Big Football Day was originally launched in line with England’s opening game at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“Running throughout what we hope will be another special summer, this is a key opportunity for us to show football is a sport where all women and girls belong.
“The progress that has been made across the game over this recent historic period wouldn’t have been possible without the investment from The National Lottery.”
Supporting sports forms a core part of the National Lottery’s good causes mission, with lottery funds not just backing grassroots sport but also Olympic athletes.
The extent to which lottery revenue has been fully utilised for this has been controversial though, having been extensively debated during the last licence contest which saw Allwyn take over the licence from Camelot.
In the case of the Lottery’s renewed partnership with the FA, grassroots clubs from across the country will be getting involved with Big Football Day, aiming to highlight the importance of creating equal opportunities for women and girls to access the sport.
The events form part of The FA’s Made for this Game campaign, which was launched to support the drive to unlock equal opportunities for all women and girls in football, whilst showing it is ‘a sport where they belong’.
“At The National Lottery we are proud that our players have been at the forefront of backing women and girls’ sport for over 30 years,” added Adam Chataway, Head of Partnerships at National Lottery operator Allwyn.
“Thanks to them, over the last decade in excess of £65m of National Lottery funding has been committed to support the growth of women’s football.
“We are delighted to further emphasise that commitment through Big Football Day powered by The National Lottery.”