OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS, WE'VE RECEIVED SOME ENQUIRIES FROM CLUBS REGARDING LONDON FA'S AFFILIATION FEES AND HOW THEY WILL COMPARE TO THOSE SET BY OTHER COUNTY FOOTBALL ASSOCIATIONS GOING FORWARD.  

We therefore wanted to take this opportunity to explain to everyone the rationale behind how we have set our affiliation fees for the 2021-22 season and how we hope it strikes the right balance in these difficult times.

• The COVID-19 crisis has had a significant impact on every business across the UK. As part of the leisure and hospitality sector, football has been particularly affected and the London FA is no different. London FA's income is a combination of fees from grassroots football activity and a grant from The FA. Over the past year, our income has reduced by over a third – this is a permanent change and as a result we have had to make some difficult business decisions to ensure a sustainable organisation going forwards. 
• Furthermore, London FA has invested significantly in its club network over the past few years, most notably our Growing Grassroots Fund (approx. £70,000 per year up to the 2020-21 season). These investments have been taken from our reserves.
• The COVID-19 pandemic is not over and in light of this on-going uncertainty, we have worked hard to strike a balance between how we support our clubs financially but at the same time manage the financial sustainability of the business. We believe that the package we’ve developed strikes that balance and the following discounts have been applied:

- A £10 reduction to the ‘per team’ affiliation fee. This removes the per team fee for youth clubs completely.
- A 23% discount to Personal Accident insurance
- Free entry for youth teams to our youth cup competitions

• This will hopefully be a welcome reduction for our member clubs. These discounts are focused on ‘per team’ costs, which are generally the most expensive part of affiliation. 

County FAs all operate as different businesses, with different financial pressures, and so affiliation costs have always varied. We are a business that operates in Central London and there are significant costs associated with that. We have discounted our affiliation costs as much as is possible and believe we also offer some of the most competitive Personal Accident rates across the country. It is also important to highlight that we have not raised our affiliation fees for over five years now, despite our costs increasing significantly. 

Through our development team we are also on hand to provide support with a wide variety of grants and funding opportunities. If you would like more information please email us at development@londonfa.com and the team will be happy to help.