The quality and availability of pitches is the biggest factor in how often people in England play football, says the biggest grassroots survey ever conducted by the Football Association.

More than 28,750 players, coaches, referees and volunteers replied to the poll, which also highlighted concerns about the standard of coaching, but 75% aimed to maintain or increase their involvement next season.

The FA will invest a record £260m into grassroots over the next four years. “Addressing the problem of poor quality facilities is one of the areas where we have earmarked significant additional investment,” said FA director for participation and development Kelly Simmons.

She told BBC Radio 5 live that introducing new all-weather 3G artificial surfaces, particularly in cities, was “integral into everything we want to achieve”.

More than half (52%) of respondents said football is the most value-for-money sport to take part in – beating cycling (36%) and running (32%).

According to the latest Sport England survey, 1.9m people take part in football each week, but the FA lost £1.6m of public funding after a drop in participation figures in 2014.

About 83% of amateur football matches take place on council-run pitches, which the FA has previously said are in an “abhorrent state”.

Squeezes on council budgets have seen costs rise for local teams, but national game senior development manager Pete Ackerley said last year that building more sustainable artificial pitches would help solve the problem.

The FA wants to bring the number of all-weather 3G artificial surfaces in line with some of its European counterparts. Part of this will come under the ‘Parklife’ scheme which will see the creation of ‘hubs’ in cities, a scheme which is being piloted in Sheffield.

FA chairman Greg Dyke said last year that grassroots football was in a “degree of crisis” and has pledged a 50% increase in the total number of full-size, publicly accessible 3G artificial grass pitches across England, to more than 1,000.

Pete Ackerley said: “We are seeing a lot of players will play more if we get the environments right. We’re finding that the better the pitch, people will play more, and absolutely more people will play.”

Source: BBC