Proof of Play
Football Social Value Calculator
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Modelled Annual Social Value
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Football Social Value Calculator

Your club has been worth this for years.
Now you can prove it.

Ampthill Town FC. £1.97M. 444 players.
Longfleet FC. £1.65M. 339 players.
Radstock Town FC. £441k. 100 players.
Three tiers of the pyramid. Same tool. Ten minutes each.

Grant panels want evidence. Councils want numbers. Your community wants to know you matter. Most grants are lost on the paperwork, not the football. Proof of Play gives you the paperwork — a modelled social value figure backed by government methodology, plus the report, press release and funding guide to use it.

Social value is the measurable impact your club has on people's health, wellbeing and community — beyond the football itself. Every club generates it every week. Most have never seen the number, or understood why it matters so much.

Takes about 10 minutes to complete
Built on HM Treasury & Sport England methodology
No login required.
How clubs are using this
🏟️ Pitch, clubhouse and facility grants. Whether you're going to the council for stadium improvements or to the Football Foundation for a new 3G, a new pitch, new goalposts, floodlights or a clubhouse refurbishment — your Proof of Play report shows the community return on that investment before a single brick is laid or a blade of grass is seeded.
📋 Parish pitches, council leases and local authority support. Most clubs play on pitches owned by a council or parish. Local authorities are now legally required to maximise public benefit in their decisions. A quantified social value report gives your club the evidence the council needs to justify supporting you — whether you're renewing a lease, asking for a fee reduction, or lobbying for drainage work on a boggy pitch.
🤝 Sponsorship, small grants and Football Foundation applications. Clubs are using their reports to strengthen Football Foundation Grass Pitch Improvement bids, National Lottery Awards for All applications, parish council grant requests, and conversations with local business sponsors who increasingly want to see the community impact of their support.

Your report combines club-entered figures with modelled proxy values from named public and academic sources. It uses UK social value and wellbeing methodology and applies those proxy values to your club's data. Some outputs also include clearly labelled modelling assumptions. See the Methodology tab in your results.

What clubs have discovered
£1.97M
Ampthill Town FC — 444 players, founded 1881. Berks & Bucks FA.
£1.65M
Longfleet FC — 339 players, founded 1988. Dorset FA.
£441k
Radstock Town FC — 100 players, founded 1895. Somerset FA.
£122.9bn
Annual social value of community sport in England (Sport England, Year 2 — November 2025)
Step 1 of 5

About your club.

Ten minutes from now you'll have a number that's been there for years.

Your registered club name as it appears with your County FA.

Enter your full postcode (e.g. WF14 6AB). Used to calculate your deprivation band, which affects your social value score and grant matching.

Step 2 of 5

Players

Enter registered player numbers per FA age group. The calculator maps each group to the correct Sport England WELLBY value automatically. Use your most recent season's figures.

Where do these values come from? Wellbeing figures are drawn from Sport England's Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025), produced with Sheffield Hallam University, Manchester Metropolitan University and State of Life using HM Treasury WELLBY methodology. Active children aged 11–16 generate £4,300 per year in wellbeing value; fairly active £3,300. Children 7–11: £3,100 active / £1,700 fairly active. Active adults generate £2,600; fairly active adults £1,200.
Club type

Tell us who plays — this shows only the relevant sections and applies the correct wellbeing values.

Youth Players

Count registered players by age group. Include anyone who trained or played at least once this season.

Boys / M
Girls / F
U7s
U8s
U9s
U10s
U11s
U12s
U13s
U14s
U15s
U16s
U17s
U18s
Adult Players
Youth training frequency
Step 3 of 5

Volunteers & workforce

Volunteer contribution is typically the single largest number in your whole assessment. Most clubs are shocked by what they find here. Enter everyone: coaches, committee, kit washers, the person who sets up the cones, those who sell the teas, coffees and sandwiches.

Methodology: Volunteer economic value is calculated using the DCMS/London Economics 2024 replacement cost methodology (£13.20/hr) × hours contributed. On top of that, Sport England's Social Value Model Year 2 places the wellbeing value of volunteering at approximately £2,100 per volunteer per year. Both figures are cited in your methodology appendix.
Volunteer numbers & hours
Don't just count the coaches. Most clubs undercount their volunteers by half. Include everyone who gives unpaid time: committee members, social media, treasurers, kit washers, pitch markers, matchday setup, tea bar, fundraising organisers, first aid trained staff, registration admin, travel coordinators, website managers, photographer. If they give time to make the club run — they count.

Anyone giving unpaid time — coaches, managers, committee members, groundstaff, kit washers. Count each person once.

Qualified workforce
Step 4 of 5

Community reach

This is the section most clubs forget — community hires, programmes beyond football, facility access. A lot of hidden value lives here.

Community programmes

These are people your club reaches beyond registered players — don't include your playing members here, they're already counted in step 2. Fill in whichever apply to your club and we'll calculate the total.

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Youth tournaments, open days, fundraisers, awareness sessions, community matches — any event your club runs. Sport and non-sport events both count. Enter total attendees across the year (not your regular players — they're already in Step 2). E.g. 200 at a tournament + 50 at an open day = 250.

Enter the number of unique people you reach — not the number of programmes or sessions. If you run 4 groups supporting 70 people, enter 70. Count each person once even if they attend multiple groups.

Facilities & wider access
Step 5 of 5

Financials & support needs

Optional but powerful. Income figures allow us to calculate your Social Value to Cost Ratio — showing the pound value generated per pound invested. The ND/MH section adds the FMHA dimension no other tool provides.

Club financials (optional)
£
£
Neurodiversity & mental health — the hidden picture

Every squad has players who need a bit more understanding. Most clubs have never seen how many.

This section adds FMHA's signature layer. Using established prevalence data, it estimates how many players may be neurodivergent or experiencing a mental health difficulty — and what that means for your club's support responsibilities. This appears as a dedicated section in your full report and press release.

Important if using this in a funding application: these are statistical projections based on national averages — not diagnosed beneficiaries. Grant assessors will challenge any club that presents these figures as confirmed fact. To use them credibly in a bid, pair them with evidence of your club's inclusive coaching practices — for example, FA-qualified coaches, a welfare officer in post, or completion of FMHA neurodiversity / mental health first aid training. The numbers show likelihood; your policies show readiness.
Conservative (10%) 14% High (20%)
The 14% figure reflects published estimates of neurodivergent prevalence in youth populations (ADHD: ~5–7%, autism: ~1–2%, dyslexia: ~10%, with significant overlap). Source: NHS England; British Dyslexia Association.
Quote for your report & press release
Now you've seen the figures, add a short quote from someone at the club. This appears in your chairman's summary report and press release. Keep it genuine — a sentence or two is plenty.

Need help filling this in?

Anyone giving unpaid time to your club: coaches, assistant coaches, managers, committee members, groundstaff, kit washers, first aiders, social media helpers. If they're not paid and they give time, they count. Include each person once even if they do multiple roles.
Yes, count them in both places. A player-coach contributes as both. The tool models these as separate types of social value so there's no double-counting problem.
A Community Event is a one-off occasion (tournament, open day, fun day, fundraiser) where attendance goes beyond your registered players. A Community Programme is an ongoing activity (weekly sessions, mental health group, walking football) with a regular group of participants. If it repeats week to week, it's a programme. If it happened once or a few times, it's an event.
Under Community Programmes. Enter the number of unique individuals attending across all your ongoing groups. If you run 4 groups reaching the same 70 people, enter 70 — not 280.
Enter them in both sections. The social value generated through football participation and through community programmes is calculated separately and represents genuinely different outcomes. There's no need to deduplicate.
Everyone who attended: your players, their families, visiting teams and their supporters, spectators, officials. If they came through the gate, count them.
Use your best judgement to find the closest category and note it in any free text field. If you're really unsure, enter what you can and reach out to us — we'd rather help you capture it accurately than have it missing from the picture.
We use it to understand the local context your club operates in — particularly deprivation level, which affects the weight given to some social value calculations. It's used for analysis only and isn't shared publicly.
The tool uses the Sport England Social Value Model, which applies WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year) proxy values to participation in sport and community activity. These are peer-reviewed values developed from large-scale survey data. The £ figures represent a standardised way to compare wellbeing outcomes across different types of social investment.
Not currently — we'd recommend completing the form in one sitting. It should take no more than 10–15 minutes if you have your player registration data to hand.
Your Report & Outputs
Here's what you do with it.
What sits inside your club right now
Most of this is invisible. The value below is real — but so is the fragility.
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players may be neurodivergent
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likely to experience a mental health difficulty this season
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likely to need additional understanding and support
£0
of social value at stake if those needs go unmet
Estimates based on published NHS England and British Dyslexia Association prevalence data. This is not a diagnostic tool — it is a planning reality.

Chairman's One-Pager

Here's the value your club creates when that environment is held together properly.

Your Club
Social Value Assessment · Proof of Play · Powered by FMHA
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estimated annual social value generated for your community
Participant Wellbeing Estimated
£0
From improved life satisfaction across youth and adult players
Health & Productivity Savings Estimated
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Reduced NHS demand, disease prevention, mental health services and workplace productivity
Volunteer Contribution Estimated
£0
Economic and wellbeing value of volunteer time
Community Impact Estimated
£0
From community programmes, facility access and social cohesion
Calculated using Proof of Play, powered by FMHA · fmha.academy Sources: Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025) · HM Treasury WELLBY · ONS 2024

Full Technical Report

Complete assessment with methodology notes. Suitable for County FA submissions, funding applications and institutional audiences.

Social Value Assessment

Proof of Play · Powered by FMHA ·

Press Release

Ready to send to local press, your County FA and any media contacts. Edit the bracketed sections before sending.

Social Post Pack

Four ready-to-post versions for different platforms. Edit to add your own club photos before posting.

Funding Guide

Your social value evidence strengthens every application below. Each section includes a ready-to-use paragraph for your application.

Methodology & Sources

Full transparency on every proxy value used in this assessment. Attach this to any institutional submission.

Outcome measured Proxy value applied Primary source Year
Wellbeing value: Under 11s / ages 7–11 (active 2+/wk: £3,100 / fairly active: £1,700) Active £3,100 / Fairly active £1,700 / child / yr Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025) (Sheffield Hallam / MMU / State of Life)
sportengland.org		 Year 2 (November 2025)
Wellbeing value: Under 16s / ages 11–16 (active 2+/wk: £4,300 / fairly active: £3,300) Active £4,300 / Fairly active £3,300 / child / yr Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025) (Sheffield Hallam / MMU / State of Life) Year 2 (November 2025)
Wellbeing value: active adult (2+ sessions/week) £2,600 / adult / yr Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025) Year 2 (November 2025)
Wellbeing value: fairly active adult (1 session/week) £1,200 / adult / yr Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025)
Wellbeing value: disabled/long-term health condition adult £5,100 / adult / yr Sport England Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025)
Health & productivity savings per active adult £478 / adult / yr Conservative derivation from Sport England Secondary Value Model (£10.5bn total across active population). Includes GP visit reduction and mental health service savings.
sportengland.org		 Year 2 (November 2025)
Health & productivity savings per active child (internal proxy) £90 / child / yr Conservative derivation, Sport England Secondary Value Model (youth health outcomes component) Year 2 (November 2025)
Volunteer economic value (salary equivalent) £13.20 / hour DCMS/London Economics 2024 replacement cost methodology, based on Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) mapping of volunteer roles. This is the current government-recommended approach for valuing volunteer time in public sector appraisals.
DCMS Community Life Survey		 2024
Volunteer wellbeing value per volunteer per year £2,100 / vol / yr UK Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025) primary value component. Current build uses a single regular-volunteer wellbeing rate (£2,100/yr). Primary sources: DCMS/London Economics 2025 replacement cost methodology (England) · UK Social Value Model Year 2 (November 2025).
sportengland.org		 Year 2 (November 2025)
Community programme value per participant Removed Previously £650/participant/yr — removed as no defensible evidence base could be identified. The £14.2bn community cohesion figure belongs to earlier Sport England research and is not part of the current Year 2 (November 2025) model. Community value is acknowledged qualitatively in reports but excluded from the headline social value figure. N/A — removed
WELLBY monetary unit (1-point life satisfaction change) £15,900 / WELLBY HM Treasury Green Book Supplementary Guidance on Wellbeing (2021), uprated to 2024 prices. LSE / Simetrica-Jacobs methodology. Base value: £13,000 (2019 prices).
gov.uk		 2024
Neurodivergent prevalence estimate 10–20% (user-selected) ADHD: ~5–7% (NHS England); Autism: ~1–2% (NHS England); Dyslexia: ~10% (British Dyslexia Association); with significant co-occurrence. Default of 14% reflects combined conservative estimate with overlap adjustment. 2023
Annual mental health difficulty prevalence (children/youth) ~20% / year NHS England Mental Health of Children and Young People in England Survey 2023. ~1 in 5 children and young people (updated from previously cited 1-in-4 figure). 20.3% of 8–16-year-olds, 23.3% of 17–19-year-olds had a probable mental disorder. 2023
Value at Stake — scenario model 12% disengagement assumption This is a scenario model, not an evidence-based projection. It applies a 12% assumed disengagement rate to the additional-need cohort (players estimated to require additional support), multiplied by average wellbeing value per player. The 12% figure is a deliberate conservative lower bound — Smith et al. (2024), a scoping review of 143 studies commissioned by Sport England (Edge Hill University, October 2024), found attrition rates of 7–33% in single-arm CYP sport intervention studies and 2–51% in RCTs. Using 12% positions this estimate conservatively within that range. This figure should be treated as a prompt for reflection, not a forecast. Smith et al. (2024) — Sport England scoping review
Group sport effect size — CYP mental health SMD –1.06 (group) vs –0.32 (individual) Smith et al. (2024), Edge Hill University / Sport England — scoping review of 143 studies examining sport and physical activity interventions for children and young people's mental health. Group-based interventions achieved a standardised mean difference of –1.06 (large effect) vs –0.32 for individual programmes. Informs the qualitative youth mental wellbeing narrative in the Full Report. No direct £ proxy applied — cited as qualitative evidence of the group sport advantage. Smith et al. (2024)
Physical activity, loneliness and wellbeing Narrative only — no £ proxy applied Sport England Active Lives Survey (November 2022–23) — population-level data evidencing the association between physical inactivity and loneliness across all age groups, and lower wellbeing scores in more deprived areas. Cited in the adult players section of the Full Report as a qualitative strength. A £ monetisation of loneliness reduction is not yet included in this model — the evidence base is robust but proxy value methodology is not yet settled at national level. Active Lives Survey, Nov 2022–23
IMD deprivation wellbeing uplift ×1.10 for IMD Deciles 1–3 A 10% uplift is applied to participant wellbeing values for clubs in the most deprived areas of England (IMD Deciles 1–3, top 30% most deprived). Grounded in Sport England's Active Lives Survey (November 2022–23) evidence of lower baseline wellbeing and stronger association between inactivity and poor outcomes in deprived communities. The uplift reflects that marginal wellbeing gains from sport participation are larger where baseline conditions are worse. Applied only where the postcode lookup confirms IMD Decile 1–3; 1.0× otherwise. Active Lives Survey, Nov 2022–23
Important caveat: Proof of Play produces estimates, not audited valuations. All proxy values are drawn from primary published sources and applied conservatively. Figures represent the approximate social value attributable to the activities entered — they are not a claim that this value has been precisely generated or independently verified. For formal social value assessments or academic submissions, we recommend commissioning a full Portas Consulting or Sheffield Hallam SIRC evaluation. This tool is designed to help clubs understand and communicate their social contribution with credibility. Methodology produced by FMHA. Powered by Proof of Play. fmha.academy