London Football: FA rebrand can help find next Saka, says chief

London Football has warned that the game could miss out on the next Bukayo Saka or Chloe Kelly if the capital fails to keep up with the soaring demand to play at grassroots level.

The city is one of the biggest producers of footballers in the world, with one study earlier this year placing the number of active male professionals from the London area at more than 2,700.

Those numbers put it in the same bracket as football hotbeds like Paris and Sao Paulo and appetite within the M25 for playing at recreational level is only increasing. 

But that production line could be under threat if London Football – the new name for the London FA – can’t match the clamour to play, says chief executive Paul Bickerton.

“London is an incredible football city. There’s 13 professional clubs, some right at the very top of the Premier League. It’s an incredible story, really,” Bickerton tells City AM.

“A lot of these good young English players are coming through the grassroots program in London. I think there’s a lot of resilience in the game, but the risk is that you create less opportunities.”

A post-Covid surge in playing football has left local FAs struggling to find enough spaces and staff, with the number of female players alone increasing three-fold.

“Over the last four or five years, you’ve seen this quiet revolution in grassroots football. It’s been across the country but more prevalent in London than anywhere else,” Bickerton adds.

“The biggest challenge, without a doubt, is going to be the facility space. It takes a long time in London to get anything new built from a football perspective, and we’re just hoping we can move it quickly enough to keep pace with some of this growth.

“Women and girls are often at the back of the queue when it comes to accessing facility space, so I think the damage would probably be more significant on the talent pathway for them. That’s the risk if we can’t do those things.”

London Football has long-standing links to the Square Mile – the Lord Mayor remains their patron, despite its rebrand ditching the old City of London coat of arms.

County FAs have traditionally been administrators – running amateur leagues, disciplinary matters – but London Football recognised it needed to pivot to a more developmental remit. 

That is why it has rebranded and issued a new four-year strategy which the non-profit organisation hopes will be aided by its first ever corporate partners.

“If we want to keep doing some of the things we’re doing, like our women and girls facility fund, we need to be generating substantial sums of income elsewhere,” says Bickerton. 

“The commercial space, we always felt, has really good potential because companies want to associate themselves with grassroots football. 

“You might have a big bank that wants to target the London market, therefore the London FA might be interesting and would be much lower cost than a Premier League club or the FA.”