Seniors support grassroots game

England's senior players will be asking the nation to join them in their ambition to ‘Get Into Football’ before they step out for a brand new qualifying campaign this autumn.

Ahead of Wednesday's International Friendly with Hungary, Fabio Capello’s England squad will proudly support The FA’s grassroots football and coaching message across their training kit to inspire people to get into the nation’s favourite game. The message will also appear on LED perimeter boards at Wembley Stadium during the match.

England’s apparel will carry the words ‘Get Into Football’ followed by the link to the TheFA.com – the place where anyone with ambitions to play, coach or referee can go to find out more.

The initiative is designed to drive prospective grass roots participants to find out how they can find a team, get into refereeing, get into coaching and learn about The FA Youth Award. The website also has details of The Future Game document written by The FA’s Football Development division, headed by Sir Trevor Brooking.

Fabio and the squad will also be joined by several grassroots coaches from the game, who will watch the entire session and see how, like Fabio, they can take their steps from coaching aspiring young players to some of the nation’s finest talent.

In England 190,000 people have undertaken The FA’s Level One coaching course in the last decade and almost 3,000 coaches have undertaken the new FA Youth Awards.

The FA Youth Award is a new path of courses developed by FA Learning specifically for youth coaches. The course is split into three modules and an introductory module – and places can be booked via County FA’s across the country.

The FA Youth Award is revolutionary in coaching young players and trains coaches to develop the right environment for young players to learn and improve, develop quality practice sessions according to differing player abilities and encourage problem solving, decision making, skill development and creativity from their players.

Furthermore, over 26,000 coaches have now engaged on the UEFA B Licence course, with 22,913 having completed part one and 3,186 having passed the full certificate. Nearly 1,000 coaches have completed their UEFA A Licence badge through The FA and 160 coaches in England possess a Pro-Licence.

On an annual basis, the number of people qualifying for these top UEFA coaching qualifications in England is now on a par with all of Europe’s leading nations, and some of football’s biggest names have recognised the quality of our instruction.

Prior to the 2010 World Cup The FA produced a new coaching blueprint titled The Future Game, a vital technical guide for youth coaches outlining a philosophy for developing young players to contest at the highest level of world football.

Every month nearly seven million people play some form of the game including 3.9 million children. There are 125,000 FA-affiliated teams playing in over 1,700 leagues.