BARCLAYS COMMUNITY SPORT FUND
£1000 Access Grant
The Barclays Community Sport Fund supports charities, community groups and grassroots sports organisations who are working within the most deprived and rurally isolated areas of the UK and are making football, tennis, and cricket more accessible to women and girls.
We want to make sure our funding reaches organisations who are providing football, tennis, and cricket activities for people and communities that need support the most.
Who is eligible to apply?
We welcome applications from not-for-profit organisations, including charities, community groups, youth groups and traditional sports clubs.
Groups must meet the following criteria:
You deliver football, cricket, or tennis activities for women and girls – or are applying for funding to start.
You operate in an area of high deprivation or rural isolation.*
*We use the Government Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to establish eligibility and only organisations located in or supporting people from IMD areas 1-3 are eligible to apply.
We will consider disability applications from groups that are not in deprived or rurally isolated areas. These groups must, however, offer activities for women and girls.
How much can I apply for?
You can apply for one grant of £1000 per organisation to support delivery of your football, cricket or tennis activities.
We cannot give out grants to different teams within an organisation, so please consider where the funds are most needed.
If your group delivers more than one of our focus sports (football, tennis, or cricket), you can only apply for one grant to cover all activities per club.
What are the open and closing dates for the fund?
The access grant programme will be open for applications for two months; from 9am on Wednesday 25th March 2026 until 5pm on Wednesday 27th May 2026.
Please note, we expect the fund to be extremely popular and may close earlier if we receive a high volume of eligible applications. We encourage you to read the criteria thoroughly and apply early for the best chance of success.
To check you are eligible and make sure you have all the information you need to apply, please read the Frequently Asked Questions below.
Frequently Asked Questions
£1000 Access Grant
We will only award one grant per organisation. You may split the £1000 grant across your football, cricket, or tennis activities.
We use the Government Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) from across the UK. Please use the links below to check your organisation’s postcode.
If your group is based outside of these areas, but your beneficiaries are from IMD 1-3 areas, you must clearly demonstrate this in your application.
We will consider disability applications from groups that sit outside of IMD areas 1-3. These groups must, however, offer activities for women and girls.
The funding is unrestricted, meaning it can be used for anything that will support your delivery of football, cricket, or tennis activities for women and girls.
Typical examples of costs might include a contribution towards:
We are unable to fund trips abroad, costs associated with elite sports or talent development, and any school based sports activities.
The funding will ideally be spent within a six-month period, to allow us to monitor the impact of the programme.
We are flexible with this as we understand that sometimes plans can change.
We want to hear how the fund and support has impacted your organisation. You will be required to complete a short monitoring form six months after receiving your grant.
Some organisations may also be selected for an audit and be required to provide copies of invoices paid and receipts for any items connected to the grant.
Schools and other educational institutions are unfortunately not eligible to apply for the fund. Charities that support schools may be considered if they are inclusive of girls from the wider community and not just pupils from that school.
Yes. Groups who have previously received funding from the Barclays Community Sport Fund can re-apply if they meet the eligibility criteria. We would need to see how the grant will support you to develop and extend your activities from what we previously funded.
However, if the fund is heavily oversubscribed, we may prioritise groups that have not received funding before.
No, you will need to complete and save your grant application at one time.
You can find a copy of the grant application questions here. You may like to complete the questions offline first and then copy and paste your answers into the online form when you are ready, to prevent losing any of your work. Please do not submit this as your application. You will need to complete the online form.
You will also need to attach a copy of your bank statement and governance document / company or charity number, so please have these to hand when you are ready to complete the online form.
Yes you can view your completed application by following the link below and using the email address you used to complete your application.
We will accommodate different accessibility needs to give organisations the best chance of communicating their idea and plans with us. This could be arranging a conversation with a member of our team to provide clarity on the questions and process, or providing information and the application form in accessible formats. We will consider any requests for accessibility that will reduce barriers to applying.
If you require additional support or wish to make an accessibility request, we are happy to help.
Please get in touch at barclays@sported.org.uk
The grant programme closes on 27th May 2026. You will hear back from the Sported team to let you know the outcome of your application or request additional information by the end of July 2026.
