Inclusion is a key word in society. The theme of Social Inclusion addresses the area of a lack of wealth or welfare issues. This may result in less participation or involvement for people who would otherwise have wished to participate in a given activity. Currently within football we have players who come from a varied socio-economic background. This means that players at your club could come from a variety of family backgrounds ranging from very wealthy to very poor. Sociologists and Politicians will define Social Exclusion as caused by poverty or a series of often linked circumstances such as unemployment, low income, high crime, poor housing and health, family breakdown and poor skills.

Football is a sport played everywhere and not just confined to leafy affluent suburbs or run down housing estates, so for football the issue of Social Inclusion is a real and existing one. There is no doubt that poverty can and does prevent participation for many players. When we in football refer to Social Inclusion we mean the ways we ensure that players are not excluded from participating if they wish to.

There are a number of Government initiatives to address this area, with Local Government taking a major role in addressing this issue. If people lack the resources to enable participation then application can be made to various departments to seek assistance.