Giving girls equal access to football in schools

In March 2019, Barclays announced the biggest ever investment in UK women's sport by a brand*. As part of this commitment, we’ve been supporting the Barclays Girls’ Football School Partnerships (BGFSP), established to solely focus on ensuring girls in England have equal access to football in schools by 2024. In 2021 we also became lead partner of Barclays Game On, a programme developed by the Youth Sport Trust that is delivered in secondary schools across England, using football as the tool to develop and teach key life skills to young girls.

As our national game, Barclays believes in the power of football and its ability to speak to the nation and create confidence and opportunities for young people. For example, 80% of girls show more confident behaviour having played football. Yet we know historically the opportunities to access the game haven’t been equal; 76% of men said they played football in PE lessons at school, yet only 19% of women said they had the chance to play**.  That is something we wanted to change.

The BGFSP kicked-off with a committed network of 100 specialist hubs and has now grown to over 300 - each delivering girls’ football programmes in PE or Games lessons, supporting teachers in primary schools with training and resources.  After seeing great success, with the number of participating schools rising from 3,000 in 2019 to 20,000 in 2024, our partnership with The FA has been extended until 2028 and will deepen its focus on secondary schools, where it’s known 64% of girls will drop sports by the time they finish puberty***. A new programme will identify pupils who show potential from within schools, connect the pathway between education and football, and provide critical support to talented players and their families.

A standout Barclays Girls Football School Partnerships event is the Biggest Ever Football Session, a collaboration between Barclays and the FA as part of The FA's Let Girls Play campaign. The annual event launched with 90,000 girls all playing football on the same day in 2022. In 2024, 465,000 girls all played football at schools on the same day, garnering national media coverage, and demonstrating success of the BGFSP to date.

The Barclays Game On programme provides training and support for secondary school teachers to engage girls in physical education through football, and in addition aims to support and develop young female leaders through its leadership training module. From coaches to marketeers – they run, organise, and deliver sessions for their classmates, not only introducing more girls to football, but also developing themselves for the future.