EFL Trust

EFL Trust

The EFL Trust is the charitable arm of the English Football League (EFL) and was established in 2008 to oversee the remarkable and diverse work of EFL’s Club Community Organisations (CCOs). By joining EFDN, the EFL Trust hopes to share information on their award-winning Governance Framework, CCOP, and their Community Impact Report as well as their Environmental Sustainability Strategy and learn from the best practices across Europe.

Watch here the interview with Andy Snell, Director of Business development at EFL Trust.

Their vision: to help create ‘Stronger, Healthier, More Active Communities.’

EFL Football Clubs are based in the heart of 72 communities located all across the country.  Over 47.6 million people live within 15 miles of an EFL Club and over 40.4 million live within 10 miles. This represents 80% and 68% of the population of England and Wales respectively. The Clubs’ associated Community Organisations use the power of Football and the affinity people have for their team, to deliver a wide range of community initiatives focusing on raising people’s aspirations and quality of life.

Their vision: to help create ‘Stronger, Healthier, More Active Communities.’

EFL Football Clubs are based in the heart of 72 communities located all across the country.  Over 47.6 million people live within 15 miles of an EFL Club and over 40.4 million lived within 10 miles. This represents 80% and 68% of the population of England and Wales respectively. The Clubs’ associated Community Organisations use the power of football and the affinity people have to their team, to deliver a wide range of community initiatives focusing on raising people’s aspirations and quality of life.

The EFL Trust’s core purpose is to support all the CCOs in our network to help them achieve their collective vision.  They have established a reputation working with both commercial partners and on government contracts to successfully deliver a range of services. They focus on:

• Improving health and wellbeing
• Raising aspirations and realising potential
• Building stronger, more cohesive communities

Collectively the network engages with over 840,000 participants every year. It is estimated that EFL Clubs and CCOs generated a total of £865,196,135 of social value across their full range of community initiatives.

The EFL Trust’s mission is to advise, support, represent and resource the network of EFL CCOs. As part of this mission the Trust aims to support the network by securing programmes for CCOs to deliver significant impact in their communities. You can find out more about their programmes here What we do at the EFL Trust

You can also click here to find out more about the EFL Trust’s 2019-2024 Strategy

The Joy of Moving Programme

Ferrero UK’s corporate social responsibility project, the Joy of moving programme, which has been developed and delivered through a partnership with EFL Trust for over seven years, is based on methodology which is designed to inspire children to move though play and captures the fun approach, which we know is key. The methodology was established by independent experts, including Foro Italico (Rome University) and the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and focuses on developing key skills in four major areas:

• Physical fitness
• Motor coordination
• Cognitive functions & creativity
• Life skills

The Joy of moving programme is delivered within schools and consists of two elements; the Move & Learn project and Joy of moving Festivals.

The programme has moved over 400,000 children providing them with over 2,000,000 additional hours of learning and activity.

Move & Learn 

Move & Learn is targeted at children aged 9 and 10 – a key milestone in a child’s development – and is designed to appeal to every child through a fun and engaging approach. Consisting of 9 hours of education over six weeks, plus a series of home-based family challenges, children learn about the importance of physical activity and how to eat a balanced diet and lead an active lifestyle. We also work hard to support and encourage schools to adopt the ideas and approach in the longer term.

We are seeing the results from taking this approach. Children respond with huge positivity, telling us that they have a better understanding of why it’s important to be active and to eat a balanced and varied diet. They are also more motivated to stay active. In fact, our latest evaluation of the programme has shown that 94% of children felt that the six weeks had given them new ideas to get active.

Alongside Move & Learn, we run the Joy of moving Festivals that involve the full school during the summer term. These half or full day events are a celebration of being active. Children take part in a range of fun challenges and games during the day.

Having to adapt to the pandemic, an online resource, the Joy of moving Resource Hub, was made available to parents to keep their children active. The resource hub features several fun activities that can be played in the house or in the garden. 

The Utilita Kids Cup

This is a national tournament for junior footballers which offers children the once in a lifetime opportunity to play at Wembley Stadium.

The Cup involves over 16,000 children and creates one of the country’s largest national football competitions, which culminates in exciting finals at Wembley Stadium in front of thousands of fans before a major national final, as schoolchildren live out their dream.

The competition which inspires children to be active, healthy, and develop a strong sense of teamwork, discovered Watford footballer Will Hughes and Manchester United’s Scott McTominay, while David Beckham’s former school Chase Lane Primary walked away as 2013/14 Kids Cup League 1 winners, representing Leyton Orient.

The Utilita Kids Cup comprises of a six-a-side competition for U11 schoolchildren and culminates in three finals across the Sky Bet EFL Play-Off weekend in MayThe road to the finals starts when the new school term starts. Each EFL club organises a Utilita Kids Cup local competition for all local schools wishing to take part.

The Clubs are first split into 3 divisions, in line with club’s divisional status, before being again split into two groups, north and south. The winners of the divisional northern and southern finals will then qualify for the chance to play before the Sky Bet EFL Play-Off Final of the relevant division.

Many clubs play the final of their local competition at their home stadium before a first team game. The winners of that competition then go on to represent the club in the Area, Regional and National phases of the competition, where they will face schools representing other League clubs.