The Sports Effect Logo white on black

Football Foundations Impact Report – EPL and EFL 2026

Football Foundation Impact Report- 2026

In recent years the role of professional football clubs has become more prominent in the social impact space. While the Premier League continues to project global commercial dominance, the Championship remains the most popular second-tier league in the world, serving as the heartbeat of industrial and coastal towns across England.

This second edition of The Sports Effect’s Beyond the Pitch report analyses how 44 clubs, spanning the top two leagues of English football, leverage their badges to drive social change. For the first time, we provide a comparative analysis between the resource-heavy organisations of the Premier League and the agile, community-integrated charities of the Championship.

For more on how your Foundation or Organisation can improve their community impact please contact us Info@thesportseffect.org

DOWNLOAD THE NEW 2026 REPORT

IMPACT

INCLUSION

SUSTAINABILITY

The Sports Effect Logo white on black

Our mission is to help donors, governments and implementers
deliver transformational S4D programmes that are impactful,
inclusive and sustainable.

Quick Links

Contact

© Copyright 2024 The Sports Effect. All Rights Reserved

Mentorship

Supporting sports4development practitioners in their journey towards greater impact. If you have someone in your organisation who has potential to grow, set them up with our bespoke mentoring or coaching programme.

Strategic Management Support

A project is a means to achieve your organisation's mission. But what is your mission, values and goals? How do you measure success? How do your prioritise which goals and which tasks to create real impact. How do you recruit people that will support your aims and add value? The Sports Effect works with organisations in a full strategic review to help them create an organisation that responds to the needs of the community, and responds to donor’s needs, to create a sustainable approach to achieving their impact.

Impact Evaluation

Beyond the individual project, good S4D programmes create ripples of change. But how do we know? Through impact evaluations that measure before, during and after programmes, and measure metrics to show real change beyond the individual and beyond the life of the programme.

Grant Review

For those organisations who want their funds to deliver real change on the ground, The Sports Effect will gladly support their review process, making sure they create accountable, transparent and fair grants review processes. These processes in turn allow funds to be secure in knowing they are choosing the best candidates that have the best chance of creating transformative programmes.

Monitoring and Evaluation

If it can’t be measured it shouldn’t be done. The S4D sector must take greater responsibility for monitoring and evaluation. The Sports Effect has toolkits, expertise and training to make sure that clubs of any size can perform their monitoring. This monitoring leads to learning and learning leads to greater impact.

Sports for Development Methodologies

The Sports Effect has a huge portfolio of methodologies from around the world to help you design engaging and inclusive programmes.

Implementation

We train clubs on how to deliver sports for good projects. How to ensure all participants feel valued and included, and how to adapt to ensure that you learn and improve implementation to guarantee impact, even in challenging situations.

Fundraising

With a broad connection to funders globally, The Sports Effect has one of the largest databases of multi-sport funding anywhere in the world. We not only find funders but help tailor your offering to allow those funders to work with you, no matter your experience.

Project Design

Working through the problems and solutions, understanding stakeholders and managing risk, allows projects to be designed in a logical, convincing and most importantly Impactful way.

Conceptualisation

Helping clubs and funds conceptualisation projects and calls for proposals that can deliver real change and results.