UK sports funding for individuals, organisations and teams

This briefing provides an overview of the funding available for sport in the UK, including which organisations offer funding for different sports, the criteria for applicants to be eligible for funding, and the processes of applying for funding.

It includes the funds available for community teams and clubs as well as for individual athletes.

Hypertext links and URLs in this note are accurate at the date of publication.

UK sports councils

There are four primary bodies that have responsibility for promoting grassroots sport across the four nations of the UK. Each organisation distributes government and National Lottery funding to achieve this goal:

• Sport England
• sportscotland
• Sport Wales
• Sport Northern Ireland

Typically, these organisations fund projects that look to increase participation, or improve pre-existing community sports facilities.

Each body may also offer ‘match funding’ for crowdfunding campaigns. This is when a grant giving organisation agrees to contribute to an applicant’s fundraising efforts. For example, it might offer to top up the remaining 40% of a project if the first 60% of the goal is reached through crowdfunding.

The final primary funding distributor is UK Sport. UK Sport aims to support all potential Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the UK.

Direct central government funding

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has previously been responsible for funds that are then administered by different bodies. On 15 July 2024, the government said that its funding package for grassroots facilities would be set out in due course. According to the press release, this programme will aim to support the two following pre-existing schemes:

• Football Foundation’s Home Advantage Programme. This programme provides grants of up to £250,000 to support grassroots clubs and organisations to take on long-term leases of the local authority sites they play at.
• The Football Association’s pledge to double the number of gold-standard (3-star) community clubs by the time EURO 2028 begins in June of that year.

National governing bodies for each sport

A national governing body (NGB) is an organisation that governs and administers a sport on a national basis. Amongst an NGB’s typical responsibilities are organising competitions and promoting participation.

NGBs might offer very different funding schemes depending on the sport, such as capital grants to improve football stadiums, support for groups offering facilities to people usually under-represented in a sport, and interest-free loans for sports facilities.

Funding for disability sports

Specific forms of funding are available for disability sport. Organisations might offer support to purchase specialist equipment for sports such as wheelchair tennis. Individuals and clubs may also be able to apply for more general funding to improve disabled peoples’ access to sport.

Other sources of sports funding

A variety of other organisations also offer funding to individual athletes and young people. These include charities that support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and organisations that fund individuals aiming to compete at the Olympic or Paralympic games.

Buddle – previously known as Club Matters – is an online platform created by Sport England to provide free help to those involved with grassroots clubs. A raising money section of the Buddle site sets out some of the ways that clubs can raise money.