Starling backs the next generation of Women's football

Type: Branding - grassroots women's football funding initiative matchmaking SME sponsors with local female teams across the UK
Sport: Football
Announced: July 2026

Starling Bank launched the fifth edition of its Kick On initiative, committing to match 2,000 business sponsors with local grassroots female football teams and subsidising kit sponsorship costs, backed by Alessia Russo MBE and Jill Scott MBE.

• The funding crisis in girls' grassroots football is stark and Starling has put numbers behind it - 97% of female grassroots coaches say their team needs more funds, 76% of female players say they will drop out of the sport entirely if more funding is not secured within five years, and female players are spending an average of £212 of their own money each year just to play.
• Starling's Kick On initiative is a direct response to that gap, using its SME banking customer base as the sponsor pool and subsidising the cost of kit sponsorship to make the matchmaking commercially viable for small businesses that want to help but overestimate the cost by 35%.

• Alessia Russo MBE, Lioness, Arsenal forward, and Starling Bank ambassador, said: "We have built so much momentum in the women's game, but years of progress will quickly unravel if grassroots teams can't access more financial support. Sponsorship unlocks everything from kit, equipment and transport, to access to suitable pitches — something I experienced first-hand earlier in my career. Local businesses have the power to help young players reach their full potential and potentially go pro." Jill Scott MBE added: "It is amazing to hear how many small businesses want to sponsor the teams that desperately need it, and how many recognise the broader benefits of sponsorship too."
• Since 2023 the Kick On initiative has delivered more than 15,000 sets of kit to female grassroots players and this year Starling is targeting 32,000 - doubling the programme's reach in a single edition.
• For a bank whose core customer is the UK SME, this initiative does double duty: it solves a genuine community problem while giving Starling's business banking customers a tangible, feel-good reason to engage with the brand beyond their current account. That combination of community impact and commercial logic is what separates Kick On from a standard sports sponsorship announcement.

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