The Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB), the Lithuania Football Federation (LFF) and the Polish Football Association (PZPN) have been honoured by the FIFA Forward Awards 2024. Established in 2016, the FIFA Forward Development Programme helps FIFA’s 211 Member Associations (MA) with funding for their development projects worldwide. Currently in its third cycle through to 2026, FIFA Forward 3.0 will provide each MA with up to USD 8 million, more than seven times the amount they received when the initiative first started. The FIFA Forward Awards were introduced in 2023 to recognise the work of European member associations with the funding they have received.

The KNVB took USD 125,000 of FIFA Forward funding and – with an additional USD 504,000 from its own resources – established a slate of new competitions for young Dutch footballers from the U-6 to the U-12 category. Between June 2016 and May 2019, the aim of the project was to enhance youngsters’ participation and enjoyment in football by introducing age-appropriate match formats, which had been conceived with the help of scientific research and stakeholder collaboration. “I am thrilled with the awards that we have won with the KNVB [Dutch Football Association],” said KNVB President Frank Paauw. “It all has to do with the fact that young people are the future and that internally, we have looked with some very clever people at how we can commit young people to football. How we can customise that and how we can commit young people to stay for a longer period of time. That is the foundation for football in the long run.”

Grassroots participation was also the focus of the LFF’s Primary Schools League Project, which ran between January 2017 and June 2018. With FIFA Forward support of USD 40,665, which was added to by the MA itself and sponsorship, the project covered a broad geographical area and promoted health and well-being in youngsters as well as honing their football skills and fostering values such as teamwork and discipline. The PZPN sought to enhance performance at elite men’s youth level. FIFA Forward provided almost all of the USD 2.9 million total cost of establishing the Central Youth League for U-15, U-17 and U-18 teams across the country between July 2019 and June 2021. The goal was to not only give the country’s best young talents the opportunity to face each other and improve their training conditions at club level, but also to boost fan and sponsor interest in top-level youth football in Poland.