Liverpool is the latest city to sign up to The FA’s plan to revitalise grassroots facilities.
Football is the city’s major participation sport with over 1,200 teams, of which more than 60 per cent are junior/youth teams, and it is estimated that half a million people in the area participate in the game every year.
The £17m project forms part of The FA’s vision to create football ‘hubs’ across major towns and cities across England to make football facilities more accessible while addressing the desperate need to reduce the reliance on local authority subsidies.
It will go towards the construction of four football centres with a combination of national turf and artificial grass pitches at locations in Fazakerley, Allerton, Otterspool and Woolton.
The hubs will be run by a city-wide Football Trust with income reinvested into improvements in local facilities based around a sustainable model of investment, ownership and management.
FA chief executive Martin Glenn said: "We are delighted that planning is at such an advanced stage in Liverpool.
"I commend the city’s commitment to a project the like of which will lead to a step-change in the provision of grassroots football in England."
He added: "Over the next four years, we have laid out the ambitious target of football hubs across 30 cities to support the delivery of FA and County FA youth development and coach education programmes and to improve the quality of grassroots provision for clubs and teams."
