NFL and Go! London invest £1 million in Flag football for young Londoners across 17 Boroughs

The NFL and Go! London have announced a two-year, £1 million partnership to bring flag football to underserved young Londoners aged 11 to 24, with 19 community organisations across 17 boroughs — from Croydon to Enfield — receiving grants of up to £40,000 each to embed the sport into their existing youth work.

The funding is distributed via NFL Foundation UK, the NFL’s registered UK charity, and delivered in partnership with BIGKID Foundation, which provides coaching training and capacity building to the funded organisations.

What the Money Funds

Each of the 19 selected community organisations will receive up to £40,000 to integrate NFL Flag — the non-contact, five-a-side version of American football — into their outreach work. Organisations do not need prior experience of the sport to qualify. Training, equipment and coaching support are provided as part of the package.

The programme targets young people who face barriers to opportunity — the previous 2021–23 NFL/Mayor of London partnership, which this replaces, engaged 2,575 young people, recorded a 33% increase in confidence levels among participants when applying for jobs, and trained 80 coaches. Of those reached, 58% were female and 75% came from a diverse ethnic background.

The 2026 programme is administered by Beyond Sport, the sports-for-good organisation that managed the 2021–23 delivery and whose evaluation data helped make the case for this second round of investment.

Why Flag Football

Flag football is the fastest-growing youth sport in several countries and is confirmed as a debut Olympic sport at Los Angeles 2028 — which gives the 2026 London programme an additional relevance. Women and girls have driven some of the strongest growth internationally.

The NFL’s interest in using the sport for community investment in London is partly strategic — 43% of NFL fans in the UK are now aged 16 to 34, a statistic that reflects years of community engagement work alongside the NFL’s annual International Series games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley.

But the programme’s outcomes have been independently evaluated and the results are substantive. The 2021–23 Mayor of London partnership produced measurable improvements in wellbeing, employment confidence and community connection among participants — not just participation numbers.

Go! London and What It Does

Go! London is the Mayor of London’s sport and physical activity strategy, managed by the Greater London Authority. It funds grassroots sport, physical activity programmes and community organisations across the capital, with a specific focus on reaching Londoners who are least active and most underserved.

The shift from a direct GLA partnership to a Go! London partnership reflects an administrative restructuring of how City Hall channels sport investment — the substance of the commitment is the same as the 2021–23 programme.

Applications for the fund opened in early 2026 with grants of up to £55,000 available, running from May 2026 through to April 2028. The 19 organisations now confirmed represent the successful applicants from that process.

The Broader Picture on London Youth Investment

The NFL partnership sits alongside other significant investments in young Londoners in 2026. London’s community and cultural institutions are seeing a wave of funding announcements this year — including the £2.2 million overhaul of Rich Mix in Shoreditch, which is transforming one of east London’s most important creative spaces for young people and diverse communities as it marks its 20th anniversary.

Both investments share the same underlying premise: that investment in accessible, community-rooted infrastructure and programming for young Londoners produces outcomes — in confidence, employability and community cohesion — that more traditional public services alone cannot deliver.

Key Facts

Based on confirmed announcements from NFL Foundation UK, Go! London, Beyond Sport and Air Quality News, June 2026.