England Amputee Football Team Struggles for World Cup Funding Despite Nations League Win

Every time Scott Rogers walks into St George’s Park there is a sign on the wall that catches his eye. It boasts that the 330-acre site is the proud home of all England’s football teams. “I look at it every time and go, ‘Well, not all of them’,” Rogers says.

As head coach, Rogers guided the England men’s amputee team to the Nations League trophy in 2023. But while the Football Association funds six para national teams, amputee football is not among them.

Now one of the world’s leading amputee nations is struggling to raise enough money to compete at the men’s World Cup in Mexico in November. England earned £21.5m in prize money for finishing third in the World Cup and got £1.1m in preparation funds. The amputee side are trying to scrape together £50,000 to cover their tournament costs.

“The FA say they’re funded for a certain amount of para teams and at the moment there isn’t the funding to bring amputee football into the fold,” Rogers says. “We’re Nations League champions, and there’s a chance we won’t go to this World Cup. For an England team at the top of the game to miss a World Cup due to funding, it doesn’t sit right.”

The amputee programme was under the FA umbrella until 2006, when the governing body cut funding. “That left a lot of bad feeling at the time,” Rogers says.

They set up as a charity and have built a thriving structure. The women’s team reached the quarter-finals of the inaugural World Cup in 2024. The junior system has more than 70 players aged four to 17. They have doctors, strength and conditioning coaches, analysts, technical coaches. It is run by volunteers and funded by donations.

Rogers, a former youth coach at Wigan and Blackburn, became involved in 2000. “Whatever I’d do with an under-18 elite able-bodied team, I’d do with these lads because they were incredible,” he says.

“When people think about amputee football, they probably imagine it’s slow and laborious. It’s the opposite: fast-paced, brutal at times. They snap crutches almost every game. I fell in love with it.”

FA representatives shadowed the team at the 2022 World Cup and were impressed. But though they made a funding offer, it fell short of what was in place. “All the signs were good,” Rogers says. But the offer would have reduced training frequency and cut the number of coaches and specialists. It was declined. Coming back under the FA umbrella while continuing to take money from other sources was not an option, Rogers says.

When Owen Coyle Jr – son of the former Burnley manager – stepped down as head coach in 2023, Rogers took over. Previously, players each had to raise £1,500 to secure their place for tournaments, but Rogers scrapped the requirement.

An appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain provided the funding boost to play at Euro 2024, their pot rising from £4,000 of their £40,000 target to more than £50,000 within hours. For the World Cup this year, they are not even halfway to the £50,000 needed.

“These people don’t get paid for playing, they have jobs,” Rogers says. “If the programme isn’t of a certain level, what’s the incentive to continue to play? They sacrifice holidays with their families.”

Rogers, who stepped down as head coach in 2024 but remains heavily involved, says even £50,000 a year from the FA would go a long way. “When you look at the funding within the FA and the money involved in football, what we’re asking for to make an amazing programme is a drop in the ocean.”

The amputee players are paying for their own flights for a game in Ireland next month. “It’s there, it’s ready to go,” Rogers says. “But the danger is if we don’t secure long-term funding soon – because we can’t keep going on telly, it’s a model that won’t continue to work – I feel that we’re going to start to fall away.”

Rogers says there are “brilliant” people at the FA who run the para programme and want amputee football included, but cannot secure the funding from above. “There are always ongoing conversations with the FA and it’s not a bad relationship. But unless something changes and somebody stands up and goes: ‘Listen, this can’t happen any more,’ I think it’ll be ground into the into the ground when we’re on the verge of something incredibly special.”

An FA spokesperson said: “We continue to work closely with the England Amputee Football Association to support, identify and help deliver their key priorities over the coming season, and the continued development of amputee football in England.”