Birmingham County FA have been successfully shortlisted for the Football Development Award at the 2023 County FA Recognition Awards for its Central Birmingham Youth Development League project.

The Awards, which will be announced at Wembley Stadium connected by EE on Thursday 23 November 2023, recognise and endorse the best projects, products and services delivered by County FAs over the past season while sharing best practice and learnings from around the country.

A record breaking 242 submissions have been entered from the 50 County FAs operating across England, highlighting continuous improvements and showcasing how they are innovating to improve grassroots football and increase participation across all levels of the game.

The twelve categories which will be recognised at the awards were:

• Brand Engagement
• Coach Development
• Employee Wellbeing & Engagement
• Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
• Facility Development
• Football Development
• Partnership
• Positive Football Environment
• Referee Development
• Special recognition
• Women & Girls
• Youth Engagement

Birmingham FA has made the final shortlist for the Football Development Award for our Central Birmingham Youth Development League. The Central Birmingham Youth Development League is a Central Venue Youth League in the heart of Birmingham making football truly accessible for all. Having first being sanctioned in the 2021-22 Season with two age groups and 11 teams, the League has expanded over the past two seasons and will now five age groups over 25 teams and over 400 players.

Birmingham FA Football Development Manager, Luke Bowles said: "As a County FA this is a project we are truly proud of, using our unique mapping tool Visual-Eyes to identify wards within the Birmingham Local Authority with low participation figures and working with the third sector organisations within the community to create a Football product tailored to the needs of the community".

The FA’s Head of Operations for Grassroots Football, Tim Foster added: “I’d like to congratulate Birmingham County FA in making the final shortlist for the Football Development Award and all of the other shortlisted County FAs in what has been a record-breaking number of submissions this year. It has been fantastic to see such a strong selection of programmes and projects entered across the twelve categories, and welook forward to hosting our County FAs at Wembley Stadium in November to thank them for all they do in serving our national game.”

For more information on the work of County FA's, click here.