The bursaries are part of a £16 million commitment to boost the quality of coaching in England and linked to the Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Action Plan to widen the diversity of people coaching at all levels. 

As unveiled in the new National Game strategy for Participation and Development announced in August, with the support of £2 million investment by Sport England and the Government, The FA is creating a network of County Coaches – tasked with improving and supporting coaching across grassroots football.

The FA’s Head of Grassroots Coaching, Les Howie said: “The progress we have made is massively encouraging - we know that giving players access to quality coaching at a young age is crucial to their development and we want to ensure that we are upskilling the coaching workforce to keep pace.”

As part of the programme every County FA has access to an allocation of coaching bursaries to help to support grassroots coaches to attend Level 2 and FA Youth Award courses.

Through the Sport England funding, The FA has extended the range of coach bursaries available with a view to getting more women and people from diverse backgrounds into the profession with one bursary programme to support black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) coaches and one to support female coaches to attend UEFA B courses.

To apply for one of these bursaries, coaches must hold the FA Level 2 Coaching Certificate and be actively coaching.

To apply please follow the link below.

• For the BAME bursary programme - http://eventspace.thefa.com/FALearning/participant/arrangement.aspx?id=145272
• For the Women bursary programme http://eventspace.thefa.com/FALearning/participant/arrangement.aspx?id=145508

The 2015 bursary programme will close on 6th November and the successful bursary awardees will be notified by the end of November 2015. This programme will reopen for 2016 bursaries in March 2016

For more information surrounding qualifications and available bursaries please contact Kate on 01603 704050 or email Kate.Dixon@NorfolkFA.com.