Positive comments only please

Good idea.

this is an absolute disgrace, I run a local adults football team but we are not entitled to any sort of grant. It costs us roughly £600 a season on league and pitch fees alone and then theres equipment on top of that and the lads have to pay all this themselves. Now somebody tell me how this is fair?

We have a football team in openshaw that needs money and the kids in the area have nothing to do in the evening how about throwing some resources to the kids that are already here in britain before looking for yet more holes to throw money into...sick and tired of watch our own kids/people struggle for money.Let the asylem seekers/refugees join the clubs that are already here maybe then we can start to integrate quicker.instead of dividing groups.

I'm one of the people involved with the set-up of Inter Mancunia.

The grant was from the Football Foundation's Small Community Grants programme which was open to applications from any club. The Foundation puts millions into grass-roots football of all kinds, not just projects like this. The people our club is aimed at can't afford league subs or to buy equipment so getting them to pay isn't an option. When the grant runs out that means we'll have to find other ways to raise money.

I should also point out that the club does have an open membership policy, meaning anyone can join (a condition of being affiliated to the FA). However it's primarily aimed at refugees and asylum seekers because they are a group who don't normally join existing teams because of things like language barriers and financial reasons. A club like ours that makes special provisions is the only way they can get involved and become more a part of the local community. So we do plan to have a good mix of people, but we need to concentrate on recruiting refugees and asylum seekers at first.

Sam