If you have any questions, please contact your FSIF technical adviser and project manager before applying for a grant. For general enquiries, please contact the FSIF Administrator on 0845 345 4555 ext 4276 or at facilities@footballfoundation.org.uk.
Security of tenure
To be eligible for funding, your club must be a member of the English National League and either own the freehold of the site you want to develop or have a lease with at least ten years left before it runs out. You may be eligible if your club has a licence agreement, but we will consider each licence agreement separately.
Grant limits
You can apply for grants up to the total value detailed below in any three year period.
Clubs in Step 1 | £400,000 |
Clubs in Steps 2, 3 and 4 | £150,000 |
Clubs in Steps 5 and 6 | £100,000 |
Clubs in Step 7 and below | £20,000 |
You are eligible to apply for grant aid to meet the membership conditions of your current league. If you are promoted, you are eligible to apply for grant aid to meet the membership conditions of the new league, once your promotion has been confirmed by the league.
We will decide what percentage of the full amount of your project we can give you based on the type project you put forward. We base grants on the league you were in at the time you sent your application, regardless of whether you are relegated or promoted after that, unless your promotion or relegation has been confirmed by the league at the time you sent your application to us.
Eligible work
We will not automatically provide funding for work you need to do to meet The FA’s ground-grading standards.
The following work may qualify for a grant. We have included safety categories based on the ‘Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds’. The guide provides detailed guidance to help you assess how many spectators can safely fit in a sports ground. You can get a copy of the guide from the Stationery Office Bookshops or any good booksellers.
- covered seating, including facilities for people with disabilities
- safe open and covered standing areas
- improving walkways in and out of the stadium, and other routes for spectators within the stadium
- stadium control rooms
- first-aid rooms
- secure boundary around the ground
- barriers around the pitch
- work on walkways around the pitch
- public announcement systems
- CCTV
- connecting and improving mains services
- installing barriers that protect people from getting crushed
- floodlights or upgrading existing floodlights
- toilets for spectators, including facilities for people with disabilities
- turnstiles , pay kiosks and shelters for people running the turnstiles
- computerised systems to monitor turnstiles
- mechanical systems to count the number of people going through turnstiles
- new changing rooms or improving existing ones
- work to improve the drainage systems for a pitch and improve the surface of the pitch
- parking for cars and coaches
- improving roads that lead to the ground
- stewards’ radios
- emergency lighting.
Notes:
1. If your club is in Step 1, projects for stadium control rooms, computerised systems for monitoring turnstiles and CCTV will only be eligible if you are being promoted into the Football League. You must finish installing these facilities before your club plays its first game as a member of the Football League.
2. If your club is being promoted from Step 1 into the Football League, you have 12 months after promotion to meet the Football League’s conditions for increasing the number of spectators your ground can safely hold.
3. If your project includes any of the following, you are only eligible to apply for a grant to provide them in the first place, not to replace or improve them.
- stadium control rooms (including equipment and stewards’ radios)
- turnstile monitoring systems.
4. If you need to provide floodlights to meet the membership conditions of your league, you are eligible to apply for a grant towards installing the floodlights or towards improving the floodlights if this is necessary because your club has been promoted. We will not pay towards replacing existing systems, equipment and bulbs.
5. We have included safety categories based on the ‘Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds’. The guide provides detailed guidance to help you assess how many spectators can safely fit in a sports ground. You can get a copy of the guide from the Stationery Office Bookshops or any good booksellers.
