CSR: Giving back to the community

Corporate Social Responsibility is becoming a more and more important topic in the sports world, with teams looking to give back to their communities.

In the UK, football is by far the most profitable sport. The main guardians of the sport (the Premier League, The Football Association, and the government) created the UK’s largest sports charity in 2000 – the Football Foundation – to deliver their key charitable and CSR objectives.

Paul Thorogood is the Chief Executive of the Football Foundation and explains to iSportconnect what they do:

“The Football Foundation is manifestly a partnership between the Premier League, The FA and the Government, with a focus on building and refurbishing local football facilities. They provide the money and we provide the delivery expertise – investing their money where it is most needed and where it will have the greatest impact towards achieving their shared goals.”

Away from the pristine pitches of the Premier League, the standard of the playing surfaces quickly drops. Developing footballers and getting the general population playing more football are both challenging if you’re playing on a surface that looks more like a recently ploughed field. The Football Foundation has its work cut out, as Thorogood outlines:

“Across the board it’s agreed that facilities at the grassroots level of the game are in dire straits and have been for some time. Greg Dyke [the former FA Chairman] has said that facilities are vital to people participating in football and grassroots development. You can have as many quality coaches as you like but it’s difficult to coach young players on something that looks like the Somme battlefield.”

“If you’re playing football for health benefits, having quality facilities is very important to encouraging people to get out and run around. If you are going to create a healthy talent pathway to the professional game, you need quality facilities on which to coach. 40% of our investment goes into the 20% most deprived areas  ̶  not just because we’re a charity, but because our research shows us that this is where there are fewest facilities and where our investment is most needed. We are here to try and create a platform on which we can increase participation levels and support the game’s talent pathway; to help players to be as good as they can be.”

In sport inevitably cracks appear between the government, commercial bodies and the NGB, with each saying the other has responsibility for financing the development of the game. The Football Foundation’s success is that it crosses that divide – with all the major stakeholders funding it. They have recognised its success and funding in the programme continues to increase, explains Thorogood.

“All three funding partners have significantly increased their allocation to us recently, mainly on the back of the new TV deal, which has increased our confidence that we are achieving what they want. Don’t forget that they also invest into other CSR programmes. The Premier League, for example, contributes further multi-millions into professional club community programmes, as well as many other community-based initiatives, so we’re pleased that they and The FA and Government have seen fit to increase funding into the Football Foundation.”

“It could be that the football partners might suggest that it’s the government’s job to help people stay healthy. However, they don’t. They share the responsibility for using such a popular sport to increase participation levels to help to achieve – amongst other things – a healthier nation.”

“There are huge benefits from investing capital funding in this way. Not only is it more efficient employing a single, expert organisation to deliver shared CSR goals, rather than creating three separate organisations to do so but this single, focussed funding model is able to leverage additional partnership investment more effectively. For example, by using the Foundation, each partner achieves a minimum of a 6:1 return on investment for every pound, as historically we have more than doubled the joint investment through partnership funding over the past 16 years.”

With the Olympics Games being held in Rio, there has been a wide look at the legacy of London 2012. Football was somewhat overlooked in the Olympic legacy push, but Thorogood was keen to point out that the sport did enjoy some legacy from the Games.

“We deliver not only on behalf of our primary funding partners, but we have a range of additional clients that employ the Foundation’s expertise and unique delivery systems. As part of the Olympic legacy, the Mayor of London invested £8 million into local sports facilities across the London boroughs, which we delivered on his behalf. We used our funding model to leverage substantial partnership funding to maximise the investment. We delivered over 100 community sports facilities for the capital; each borough benefitted from at least one new sports facility, and it wasn’t just football. The investment funded 104 sports facilities across London, which catered for 29 different sports.”

“We’ve been doing this since 2000, so the project isn’t an Olympic legacy. However, we’ve invested into grassroots projects worth £1.37 billion since then, of which around £780,000,000 has been partnership funding. In real terms that means that towns and cities are benefiting from 600 new all-weather playing surfaces that we have delivered, along with nearly 1,000 changing pavilions, nearly 3,000 natural grass pitches and much more besides.”

The Football Foundation is firmly focussed on supporting improvements to the national game. A lack of quality facilities across the country has hampered initiatives to increase the number of people playing football and has certainly hindered talent development at the grassroots level. Access to improved surfaces with floodlights means improved coaching, which increases the enjoyment and health benefits of playing the game. Quality coaching on quality surfaces also helps players to be as good as they can be, with the obvious benefits to talent development through to the professional game.

“Also by supporting the outstanding community programmes delivered by the professional clubs, the brand and glamour of the Premier League and other professional clubs can only enhance participation levels and ensure that home-grown talent can reach the top. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. What we are doing is extracting the greatest benefit possible from the investment provided by our funding partners for the game as a whole, but especially for the people who use our funded facilities.”

CSR is an increasingly a part of how big companies reach into the wider community. Many would do well to look at the example set by the Football Foundation and its funding partners, in creating a single, independent, charitable delivery vehicle that expertly delivers against the needs of the commercial partner, the NGB and the government.

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