The power of football in tackling health inequalities and bringing communities together

"We don’t often get the chance to fully appreciate the potential that exists within football to help improve lives."

At its core, health and social care integration aims to foster a culture of people working together to improve people’s lives. As the charity partner of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the SPFL Trust is a third sector organisation that uses football to influence change and alleviate health and social inequalities. 

Research suggests that those living closest to stadiums of SPFL clubs are three times more likely to be living in poverty. As a result, the SPFL Trust work with 39 community trusts to develop and deliver programmes that improve the lives of people impacted by poverty, with Chief Officer, Nicky Reid, saying that the health and social benefits of football are massive in Scotland. 

“Often, we’re so busy focusing on the professional game itself that we don’t get the chance to fully appreciate the potential that exists within football to help improve lives”, Nicky says. “So we work hard to make sure that we’re talking about that as often as we can.” 

The organisation work with key partners to ensure that there is a diverse range of knowledge and expertise across all of their programmes. For example, the organisation’s Football Fans in Training (FFIT) scheme, which provides football fans with an opportunity to become fitter, healthier, and happier at the same time, recently began running a prostate pilot in collaboration with Prostate Scotland. 

“I think one of the key things to connecting communities and organisations is understanding what your strengths are and bringing in the expertise from others”, Nicky says. “That actually creates something quite powerful that affects change, and by working with Prostate Scotland who brought the knowhow, we had the clubs with the skills to deliver it, whilst we had the background knowledge and understanding through FFIT to be able to do it.” 

During the cost of living crisis in the winter of 2022, the organisation ensured that people were at the centre of decisions about their local communities by transforming their approach to how programmes were funded and created. This involved running a grant fund project that allowed the community trusts to have the ultimate say over what would work best in their communities. 

“A great example of this was at Aberdeen FC Community Trust where they ran a hub for families and communities, and six of the families involved moved from homeless accommodation into sustainable housing”, Nicky says. “It’s not something you’d recognise as a role football might play, but because there was a space where they felt comfortable to talk in, we were able to make those things happen.” 

Going forward, the SPFL Trust hopes to generate a national discussion about the role football can play in tackling poverty and health inequalities, with the hope for this to be reflected in policy. By continuing to make sure that communities can share decision-making and collaborate in a way that best serves their needs, the organisation want to build on football’s potential to ensure people can live well with dignity and respect. 

“I’m of the firm belief that our communities have never needed us more – they need alternative opportunities to grow and succeed as individuals”, Nicky says. “So with football, there’s an opportunity that exists unlike any other that can help them to do that, so I would like to see that grow.” 

You can read more about the SPFL Trust on their website here: https://spfltrust.org.uk