Every time Scott Rogers walks into St George’s Park, a sign on the wall 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.
Rogers is head coach of the England men’s amputee team, which won the Nations League trophy in 2023. Yet 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.
“Nations League champions England amputee side faces missing World Cup after FA refuses funding for £50,000 trip.”
The able-bodied England team 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. It is run by volunteers and funded by donations.
Rogers, a former youth coach at Wigan and Blackburn, became involved in 2000. “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 said.