Regional, national and international media have picked up on the recent launch of grassroots football programmes. It is thus timely to try and bring clarity to the debate, especially on new initiatives such as the one piloted by FIFA’s Football for Hope Centre in Kibera.

Grassroots football is often portrayed as a fresh concept that might turn around world football. A closer look at its history reveals that grassroots development has been an integral element of international football for almost a century. Indeed, some of the people who developed it believe that it should be part of any credible plan aimed at improving football worldwide and ensuring that everyone involved in this sport can enjoy its benefits and contribute actively to society.

Football’s popularity and universal appeal is undeniable, but we must ensure that those qualities impact on those who need it most.

We should not forget that the roots of grassroots football spread throughout all corners of this planet long before FIFA even existed. As early as 1911, for example, the English FA introduced a rule requiring clubs to set up youth teams. The development of youth football was considered so important by English clubs that they made it compulsory for professionals to play in these leagues alongside amateurs. It wasn’t until June 15th, 1930, however, that FIFA approved its own version of the FA’s law with its decision to organise under-18 championships together with an international fixture schedule. So there you have it, that’s the basics of grassroots football — essentially ‘grassroots’ football means all football which is non-professional and non-elite. It encourages mass participation and generates greater interest in the game, whilst providing more opportunities for social inclusion. Grassroots football scouting has become even more popular in recent years.

What is grassroots football scouting?

Grassroots football scouting is a term used to describe the process of searching for players who have the potential to become professional footballers. In other words, grassroots scouting refers to amateur or youth players. These talented young footballers are relatively unknown and often come from low-income families. In addition, they lack an agent because these promising juniors do not play at senior level yet – they play in local amateur leagues for their school, university, or within a small community club. When a scout starts searching amongst grassroots teams for young talented footballers there can be a large number of players that he could observe until he finds the perfect one. If we have a look at Germany where they have won World Cup 2014 most of the stars played in local amateur leagues where they were found by scouts and most of the clubs doesn’t know the potential of their players. The reason why Germany has won the world cup is that these young stars never gave up and continued to play and work hard and that led them to a professional level.