£195m to help physical activity through coronavirus

Sport England is making up to £195 million of funding available to help the sport and physical activity sector through the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

The package, which is a combination of National Lottery and government funding, is made up of: a £20 million Community Emergency Fund, which will be opened immediately for clubs and community organisations to bid into; a £5 million pot for existing partners to bid into if they're facing specific financial difficulty; an additional £55 million to support our sector during an ongoing period of restrictions, to fund new and innovative ways to keep people active and, when the period of restrictions is over, to help organisations get back to business and adjust to a different environment; and a £115 million rollover of current funding into 2021/22 to give long term certainty to over 100 well established partners who play a vital role in the delivery of sport and physical activity in England.

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden, said everything is being done to support the sport sector and keep Britain active through these challenging times.

Tim Hollingsworth, chief executive of Sport England, said: “Sporting events are being cancelled, gyms and leisure centres are closed, clubs and community groups are not operating, and children and young people are all at home. This is impacting the sector financially in a significant way, although it is heartening to see huge amounts of innovation and agility, with many operators getting classes online in a matter of days to enable home workouts for example.  

“As the body responsible for the growth of sport and physical activity at a grassroots level, we have an important role to play both in ensuring that we support those with short term cashflow concerns and immediate loss of income, as well as those facing medium and long term survival challenges and financial difficulties. We want the sector not just to come through this crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future and this package will ease the pressure on a huge number of the organisations who are central to that.”