Barclays have agreed to become the very first sponsor the FA Women’s Championship while they will also extend their sponsorship of the FA Women’s Super League, The Football Association have announced.
The banking giant’s current sponsorship of the FA Women’s Super League was due to end in July 2022 but they have agreed an extension of the deal for three more years whilst also becoming the sponsor of the FA Women’s Championship from the start of the 2022/2023 season. The move will see the league called the Barclays FA Women’s Championship, as Barclays and The Football Association aim to support the development of the second tier of the women’s competition pyramid and encourage further investment in women’s football.
Barclays will invest more than £30 million in women’s and girls’ football between summer 2022 and summer 2025, doubling the existing investment and setting a new record for investment in UK women’s sport. The announcement follows the groundbreaking deal with The Football Association* in 2019 when the bank became the inaugural title sponsor of the FA Women’s Super League.
Barclays will also increase their investment in girls’ grassroots development, extending their sponsorship of The FA Girls’ Football School Partnerships (FAGFSP) with the aim of giving girls equal access to football in schools. Since Barclays became sponsor of the FAGFSP in 2019, they have seen 9,700 new schools join the scheme taking the total to over 12,000**. The increased funding will help The Football Association expand the number of people working on the programme and achieve the aim of 20,000 schools offering football to girls by 2024.
Another benefit of the new deal is that an innovative new Barclays community fund will be offering grants and support resources to grassroots groups from next month. Barclays have partnered with UK-wide charity Sported to make small grants available for groups wishing to start offering football, or those keen to expand their existing provision to new audiences. Details will be announced at a later date, but the fund will primarily support young people in deprived or underrepresented areas through local organisations, many of whom are not yet benefitting from the wider football pyramid.
Following the announcement of the Barclays deal, Kelly Simmons, The FA’s Director of Women’s Professional Game, said “Barclays have played a crucial role in the growth of women’s and girls’ football, so it is excellent news that they are committing to a new record investment in the women’s and girls’ pyramid until 2025. As part of The FA’s 2020-2024 Women’s and Girls’ strategy, Inspiring Positive Change, we set ourselves the ambition of providing equal access for all girls at 90% of primary and secondary schools in the UK, and Barclays’ continued support and investment has allowed us to make great strides in achieving this ambition.
“From grassroots to the top tiers of women’s football, we are also extremely excited to welcome Barclays as the new title sponsor of the FA Women’s Championship. The FA Women’s Championship plays a pivotal role in the ongoing development of the pyramid structure and the credible history and association to football that Barclays has will make the league even stronger.”
*Barclays agreed to invest in excess of £15 million over the three years from 2019-2022 that included the title sponsorship of the Barclays FA Women’s Super League, becoming lead partner of The FA Girls’ Football School Partnerships and agreed spending on promoting the game during this period. Nielsen confirmed this as a record at the time, and believes the new investment will be the biggest investment by a brand in UK women’s sport to date.
**In 2019 the FAGFSP had 3,000 schools signed up to the initiative, by December 2021 this has reached 12,778 which is 55% of the 2024 target.
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