Leading the way in grassroots football

Sir Trevor Brooking, The FA’s Director of Football Development, was in Nottingham on Wednesday for the 41st UEFA Study Group Scheme where the French, Norwegian and Maltese FAs hope to gather information from The FA on how to improve their grassroots game.

Focusing on The FA’s Coaching Strategy, the work being done by the Counties and the Premier League and Football League’s Football in the Community schemes, this three-day trip will highlight the work currently being done by The FA and its stakeholders in order to enhance and improve the game for England’s young and amateur players.

For a number of different reasons (including financial, climatic and the standard of facilities), football differs greatly across France, Norway and Malta and Sir Trevor believes The FA’s standing as one of the most respected nations within the grassroots game will allow all these Associations to enhance the amateur game in their own country.

"All three Associations would have different requirements in relation to what they’d want to take out of this trip," he said.

"They’re obviously looking at the different FA programmes from a grassroots point of view, but what they’ve also discovered is football’s wider agenda in England, with the social and health-related responsibilities that perhaps they don’t focus on as much."

On Wednesday, representatives from these three overseas Associations were treated to presentations from the Leicestershire & Rutland FA and Simon Morgan and Mike Evans from the Premier League and Football League respectively.

Coaching sessions (courtesy of The FA Tesco Skills and FITC programmes) accompanied the presentations and the visitors were able to ask questions relating to any aspect of the day.

This is the third time The FA has hosted a UEFA Study Group, the previous two concerning itself with youth football and women’s and girls’ football, and Sir Trevor praised the hard work that has been carried out by everyone across the organisation.

"We look at these UEFA Study Groups as an opportunity for different Associations to share knowledge and I'm sure they’ll go away from these three days with something they can incorporate in their own country.

"The FA is highly thought of throughout Europe for the work we’ve done in grassroots football and we are looked at as one of the leading nation’s in this field, so that’s a credit to all the stakeholders involved.

"We are more than happy to host these Study Groups and the feedback from the first two was very positive and hopefully it’ll be the same for this grassroots trip."