We have published our annual report for the 2024-25 season, between 01 August 2024 to 31 July 2025.
The 2024-25 season was the first year of our new 2024-28 strategy, ‘Inspiring Positive Change Through Football’, which sets out our plan to transform English football at every level.
Through our previous four-year strategy, ‘Time For Change’, we tackled some major challenges and made significant progress across our game between 2020-24.
Our new 2024-28 strategy builds on these successes and focuses on delivering meaningful and lasting change across football and wider society. To achieve this, we set ourselves four strategic priorities: Win Tournaments; A Game Free From Discrimination; Equal Opportunities for Women and Girls; and Transform the Pitch Landscape.
This year, the Lionesses made history once again under the leadership of Sarina Wiegman, winning the 2025 UEFA Women’s EURO for the second consecutive time with a victory over Spain in the Final in Switzerland. In doing so, they became the first England senior team ever to win a major tournament overseas and to successfully defend their title. Over 75,000 fans celebrated their historic achievement at an open-top bus Homecoming parade in Central London.
Our England men’s U21 side also enjoyed back-to-back glory, lifting the 2025 UEFA European Under-21 Championship after a victory over Germany in the Final in Slovakia. Through the leadership of Lee Carsley and his coaching and support team, our England men’s U21 side have now won consecutive titles in 2023 and 2025 – a tournament that we had not previously won since 1984.
Under interim head coach Lee Carsley, the England men’s senior team, earned promotion to UEFA Nations League A, finishing top of their group with five wins out of six. Thomas Tuchel was appointed as head coach of the England men’s senior team in October 2024, alongside assistant coach Anthony Barry. They started their roles in March 2025, and by October 2025 the team had qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup with two matches to spare.
In April 2025, we were confirmed as the sole bidder, alongside the other Home Nations, to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2035 – with FIFA making the final decision later in 2026. If successful, we would be in a position to host our first World Cup since 1966, and the largest single sports event in the history of our country – helping us inspire younger generations and bring communities together.
This year, we launched our new landmark 2024-28 grassroots football strategy, ‘A Thriving Grassroots Game’, which focuses on expanding playing opportunities; ensuring equal access for women and girls; improving pitch infrastructure; tackling poor behaviour while promoting a positive culture; and supporting our network of volunteers, coaches, and referees. In our first year, we exceeded our target of 8,840 quality grass pitches – with over 9,600 now available. This helps us to facilitate up to 18,000 additional matches each week. Alongside this, we delivered more than 1,900 new 3G pitches nationwide, enabling a total of 50,000 grassroots matches every week. The Government also confirmed an allocation of £82 million to the Football Foundation for the 2025-26 season.
Our new 2024-28 women’s and girls’ football strategy, ‘Reaching Higher’, is helping us to drive the sport to unprecedented levels through our ongoing investment and commitment. Between 2023 and 2025, we increased the number of female teams by 14.3%, and we expect further growth during the next strategic period. The Lioness Futures Fund is now complete, delivering 35 new 3G pitches and female-friendly facilities to support women’s and girls’ teams across the country. Our Barclays Girls’ Football School Partnership has expanded to cover more than 90% of schools this season, giving 2.6 million girls equal access to football through PE lessons – an important partnership that we have renewed until 2028.
This year, we secured our first stand-alone three-season broadcast deal for the Adobe Women’s FA Cup, ensuring that matches from each round will be shown live on TNT Sports and Channel 4 from the start of the 2025-26 season. This new partnership delivers a significant uplift in the number of guaranteed live matches, from three to 19, showing the impressive growth and appeal of the competition.
The 2024-25 season marked the start of our new international broadcast rights cycle for the Emirates FA Cup. Together, these broadcast agreements provide us with a strong platform for long-term growth, development, and investment across both competitions. We also renewed our broadcast deal for the domestic rights to the England women’s senior team with ITV.
We achieved record levels of commercial sponsorship through a combination of new deals and significant renewals of existing partners – including a new three-year deal with Hilton, as Official Hotel Partner of the England football teams, and long-term extensions of partnerships with EE, as lead partner of all England teams and Wembley Stadium, and Emirates as global title partner of the men’s FA Cup.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to embracing the unique diversity of our country. Our new four-year Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy, ‘A Game Free From Discrimination’, outlines our long-term dedication to celebrating and promoting diversity within English football – as well as setting out our clear ambition to tackle all forms of discrimination in the game.
We hosted the inaugural Pan Football EDI Leadership Summit, which brought together leaders from across English football to help enhance representation, foster inclusion and challenge discrimination in our game. We also introduced an important landmark new rule to bring in mandatory diversity reporting across English professional football to help drive positive change in representation. Our faith-based events continue to be a great success this year, and we welcomed 2,000 guests from community groups and football clubs to Wembley Stadium as part of our award-winning ‘Faith and Football’ programme.
Wembley Stadium connected by EE remains a world-class destination for events. This year alone, we hosted 42 events, welcoming over 2.5 million guests across a range of sports and entertainment. Musical highlights included the finale of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which featured eight nights at Wembley Stadium as part of the highest-grossing music tour in history. Other sold-out performances included Oasis, as part of their Live ’25 tour, Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey, Linkin Park, and Guns N’ Roses – making the summer of 2025 the busiest in our stadium’s history. Wembley Stadium also hosted the biggest domestic football finals this season, including the Adobe Women’s FA Cup Final and the Emirates FA Cup Final, which attracted a combined attendance of 158,575 fans.
We continue to grow our ‘Experiences by Wembley’ hospitality sales year-on-year, delivering premium services to our guests, and Wembley Stadium was named as International Venue of the Year in April 2025 by Pollstar at a prestigious awards event in Los Angeles. Our strategic approach across each area of the stadium means that our stadium is debt-free and continues to thrive on the global stage.
FINANCIAL RESULTS
In the 2024-25 season, we generated a total turnover of £516m [2023-24: £551m] with an operating profit of £6m [2023-24: £64m]. These financial results comprise a consolidation of Football-Limited, Wembley National Stadium Limited, and the National Football Centre Limited.
Profit for the year returned to a more normal level, having retained profit in recent seasons to repay debt, build up a cash reserve, and fund strategic investments, including the refurbishment of St. George’s Park over the next three years.
Growth in sponsorship, events and ‘Experiences by Wembley’ revenues offset the anticipated decrease in our international FA Cup broadcast revenue. All major broadcast rights are now secured over the medium term.
During the 2024-25 season, we reinvested £158m into the game. This represented a £12m increase on the previous year, excluding a decrease in women’s football funding when the ownership of the Barclays Women’s Super League and Barclays Women’s Championship was transferred to Women’s Super League Football Limited in August 2024. This transfer created year-on-year variances across our turnover, cost, and investments in the game figures, but had no impact on operating profit.
FA Chief Executive, Mark Bullingham, said: "We launched our ambitious new four-year strategy, ‘Inspiring Positive Change Through Football’, during the 2024-25 season, and we have already made strong progress across many of our key targets. To support our goals, we reinvested £158 million across all levels of the game this year – a £12 million increase on the previous season.
"The pinnacle of the year was the Lionesses historic achievement of winning their second consecutive UEFA Women’s EURO, ending our year with another major trophy. They continue to unite the country and inspire the next generation – as seen during the memorable Homecoming parade in Central London in front of over 75,000 fans. Our England men’s U21 side also made history by winning the UEFA European Under-21 Championship for the second successive time.
"Our strong commercial performance in broadcast and sponsorship, combined with our continued success from events at Wembley Stadium, allows us to invest in our key priorities and infrastructure. Work is already underway to enhance and develop St. George’s Park to ensure it remains a world-class home for England teams and coach development, and we are taking important steps to modernise our digital programmes to improve fan engagement and strengthen the way we serve our game.
"Our achievements and financial performance outlined in this report highlight the strong position of our organisation and of English football as a whole. We are proud of the progress we’ve made across the 2024-25 season, and we remain focused on delivering even greater results in the years ahead."
