ANALYSIS: Sport - Excluded young people can be part of the team

The Football Foundation, a charity funded by the Premier League, Football Association and the Government, has 53m to hand out each year to communities in the UK. Much of it is going to organisations working with socially excluded young people at a local level. And it is not alone in backing projects that tackle social exclusion through sport. Local authorities also facilitate social inclusion projects that harness the power of sport to engage young people.

Street League is a national project, providing life-skills training through six-a-side football, which benefits from Football Foundation funding of 202,234 (www.streetleague.co.uk). Paul Kavanagh, project co-ordinator at Leicester Street League, says: "Sport provision by local authorities is just tokenistic youth work. There needs to be a national fund with local terms of reference so authorities can help projects implement social inclusion programmes."