The Welsh Gov-backed projects that celebrated Wales appearance at Euro 2025

The summer of 2025 was a historic one for Welsh football fans, with the Wales women’s team going toe to toe with other European nations at Euro 2025 in Switzerland, the first time the women’s football team has appeared at a major international tournament.

To celebrate this sporting milestone, the Welsh Government launched the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, a £1 million fund that aimed to encourage support for the team from fans right across Wales.

The fund was ultimately divided between 16 different organisations, who used the money to run a variety of projects, from match viewing parties to mini football tournaments, that added to the excitement around the Euros. Each project also served to promote interest in the women’s game, encourage increased and long-term participation in sport, and project Wales’ values around equality and inclusion.

Here’s an overview of the 16 organisations that benefited from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund and the details of the football-related projects they hosted to support the national team during that wonderful summer of sport.

Wales’ largest national youth organisation got the ball rolling with the Euro 2025 celebrations, organising no less than six football-themed projects set around the tournament. All had a keen focus on boosting support for the national team, while also empowering young women to break down barriers and get involved in sport themselves.

Two of these projects revolved around something we’re famous for in Wales: singing. Jambori’r Ewros was a digital singalong event that saw 120,000 school children from over 1000 schools singing together in support of the women’s national football team. The Euros Anthem project, meanwhile, tasked a selection of Welsh singing stars and up-and-coming female artists with composing a new anthem to support the players at the Euros.

Professional singers who participated in the project included Aleighcia Scott, a BBC radio presenter and reggae artist whose debut album was shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize in 2024, and Rose Datta, who rocketed to fame as the inaugural winner of Y Llais (the Welsh version of The Voice). The anthem, titled Ymlaen (Onwards), was one of the songs performed during the Jambori’r Ewros, with accompaniment from the participating school children.

Sticking with the theme of music, another of the Urdd’s Euros projects saw young Welsh folk musicians fly out to Switzerland during the tournament to showcase their talents. The musicians, all members of the Urdd society, performed at a number of events during the tournament, and worked in tandem with Prosiect WYTH, a group that aims to promote traditional Welsh folk dancing and clogging. The performances, including street shows before games, brought a distinctively Welsh flavour to proceedings, and illustrated how Wales is a country that both respects its heritage and nurtures young talent.

All of the Urdd’s Euros projects dovetailed neatly with the organisation’s wider #FelMerch campaign, an initiative that aims to inspire more girls to take up sport. Hosted in Cardiff in November, the #FelMerch National Conference, Wales’ largest female youth sports conference, worked to ensure the legacy of the tournament lived on beyond the summer, with free workshops and talks from specialists in the fields of nutrition, disability sport, and wellbeing. The conference was another of the initiatives supported by the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, as was the project for ambassadors from the conference to make an appearance at a dedicated event in Switzerland during the tournament.

The last of the six projects was the Gŵyl Chwaraeon Ewros, a rebranding of the Urdd’s national football competition, which takes place annually in May. The 2025 edition of the tournament, held in the town of Aberystwyth, was tweaked to have an emphasis on the upcoming Euros tournament and worked to encourage greater female participation.

The Urdd has been providing opportunities to young people in Wales to enjoy sporting, cultural, residential, humanitarian and volunteering experiences through the medium of Welsh since 1922. Its flagship event is the Urdd Eisteddfod, which is held annually in May and hosts competitions in disciples like poetry, singing and dancing that can be entered by those under 25 years of age.

Learn more about the Urdd and its Euros projects on the Urdd official website or via the Urdd Instagram account.

Founded in 2021, OTID Entertainment is an events and digital marketing company based in Cardiff focused on delivering high-quality live experiences that celebrate diversity and empower underrepresented communities.

The venture began back when founder Osamagbe Izevbigie was a student in the University of South Wales. Responding to what he saw as an alarming lack of diversity at the Students’ Union club nights, Osama launched Afrowales, a social enterprise and cultural movement dedicated to uplifting African and Caribbean communities through music, arts, and cultural education.

This venture evolved into OTID (Our Turnup Is Different) Entertainment, which now produces inclusive events, workshops, and festivals across Wales, with notable successes including the Afrowales x Black History Wales Youth Music Festival, which attracted over 2,000 attendees.

With the funding from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, OTID Entertainment launched Cymru Unleashed, a series of community-driven events focused around the beautiful game with the goal of inspiring participation in football, especially among girls and marginalised communities across Wales.

To kick things off, the organisation hosted ten community sports workshops and mini tournaments in areas including Butetown, Grangetown and Treforest, encouraging long-term engagement in sport. These tournaments were complemented by interactive pop-up art exhibitions, co-created with schools and community partners, celebrating Welsh female athletes.

One particularly unique event also gave aspiring footballers the opportunity to meet and train with a number of professional players from the women’s game, including members of the Welsh national team.

Along with these exciting physical events, OTID Entertainment also celebrated Wales’ historic presence at UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 by creating a bilingual digital campaign and VR experience that delves into Welsh sporting heritage, now available to view on YouTube.

While OTID’s project focused on generating hype around Wales’ inaugural appearance at the women’s Euros this summer, the organisation aims to ensure that the feelgood factor around women’s football continues now that the final whistle has been blown at the tournament. As such, OTID is set to organise legacy-building initiatives, such as annual events and a digital archive to preserve stories and connect with future generations.

Learn more about the project on the official Cymru Unleashed website, or follow along with OTID Entertainment’s work on the OTID official website and OTID Instagram account.

The Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of Wales has a long and colourful history of working in Wales that begins way back in the early 1920s in the coal mining towns of the South Wales Valleys.

In those days, it was common for boys as young as 14 to begin a career in the mines. It was a gruelling routine, made even tougher by a distinct lack of activities for the boys to indulge in once their shifts underground were over.

Seeking to change this, two friends, Captain John Glynn-Jones and David Davies, set about creating a series of clubs that could organise sporting and leisure activities to fill the boys’ free time, while also benefiting health, fostering friendships and creating a strong sense of community.

In 1922 the first Boys’ Club, as the organisations were then known, was established in the town of Treharris, in the county of Merthyr Tydfil, with additional clubs popping up in surrounding mining towns. These clubs were led by dedicated youth workers, creating a community-focused operation unparalleled in scale elsewhere in Britain at the time.

The clubs were officially opened to girls in 1991 (though many of the clubs already counted females among their members), when the organisation was rebranded as the Welsh Federation of Boys’ and Girls’ Groups. Today it serves as one of the foremost voluntary youth organisations in Wales with more than 200 individual clubs.

To celebrate Wales appearance at UEFA Women's Euro 2025, the organisation, in partnership with the Coalfield Regeneration Trust and Challenge Wales, launched the ‘Her Goal’ project. 

The core of the project involved a number of football activity days that took place across Wales. These sessions aimed to offer an entry point into the game for young girls who might never have tried the sport, as well as providing a space for those already acquainted with the round ball to improve their skills, meet new people and grow their confidence. One of these sessions was specifically targeted at girls with disabilities to encourage inclusivity in the sport.

Of course, part of the fun of football is spectating as well as playing, and to this end, the organisation hosted ten community watch parties during the group stage of the tournament. This involved the organisation’s individual clubs opening their venues to their community, serving food and drinks, and creating a welcoming setting to watch Wales battle it out in Switzerland.

The project also included activities not specifically related to football, such as a youth exchange programme, where young girls from Wales visited former coal mining communities in southern Germany, before heading to Switzerland to watch a Wales game during the tournament.

Keep up to date with the work of the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of Wales on their official website and the BGC Wales Instagram account.

While many would look at a dilapidated old bowls pavilion and see an eyesore, the creative folks behind Grange Pavilion instead saw an opportunity: transforming the disused space into a thriving venue of learning and leisure activities and creating a central hub for the local community. 

Since 2020, the beautifully-renovated space in the Grangetown neighbourhood of Cardiff has been used for all manner of activities, from sewing groups to Bollywood fitness sessions. Crucially, it also serves as the headquarters of the Grange Pavilion Youth Forum, which supports young people aged 14-25 by hosting business forums, running sports clubs and organising university visits, among other activities.

And it’s the Grange Pavilion Youth Forum that took the lead on a project to celebrate Wales’ participation at the Euros last summer, focused on inclusion and breaking down barriers that prevent young girls, particularly from the BAME community, from enjoying sport.

To do this, the Youth Forum facilitated football sessions at schools in the Cardiff area, making the game accessible to local children from all backgrounds and showcasing how the sport can also be used to gain crucial life skills, like self confidence and how to work in a team with others.

The Youth Forum also organised watching parties for Wales’ matches during the tournament in Switzerland. These were inclusive events, with a focus on providing women and girls with a safe and comfortable space to enjoy the games with other fans.

Learn more about the work of the Grange Pavilion Youth Forum on the Grange Pavilion official website, or uncover more about the pioneering Grange Pavilion venue via their site.

Established in the Butetown district of Cardiff in 2021, Foundation 4 Sports Coaching is a sports development and coaching organisation that aims to curtail antisocial behaviour and empower young people by running events and courses based around sport.

Such events include things like multi-sport activity camps that take place during the school holidays, supervised youth nights that keep children off the streets, after-school mentoring programmes, and female-empowerment workshops featuring inspiring guest speakers.

With funding from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, the organisation’s most recent project aimed to use the interest around Wales’ appearance at UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 as a catalyst to break down the barriers preventing young women – particularly from Wales’s Somali, Yemeni, and South Asian communities – from participating in football.

To this end, the organisation ran a number of female-focused football camps, within culturally and religiously inclusive spaces, during the summer. These events were accompanied by community workshops and cultural football festivals.

Another interesting segment of the project was the organisation providing Football Association of Wales-accredited coaching and refereeing training to five young women, in a bid to develop diverse female role models in the game.

Keep up to date with Foundation 4 Sports Coaching’s work on the Foundation 4 Sports Instagram account.

Growing up in Cardiff, Eleeza Khan didn’t think it was possible to become a football referee. There was no one who looked like her, wearing a hijab, doing it. But, despite this, she and her sister Rosheen are now Wales’ first female Muslim referees and describe themselves as ‘football activists’.

With hopes of inspiring the next generation, Expo’r Wal Goch has produced a documentary film telling the story of the sisters’ journey into the world of professional refereeing. The film highlights how the pair, who are also football coaches, have contributed to breaking barriers, changing perceptions and inspiring young women of all communities to participate in the beautiful game.

The film, created with support from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, is directed by Aaliyah MacKay, an up-and-coming creative talent who has previously written for productions on Channel 4 and held roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The documentary was shot on-location in Cardiff, the city where Eleeza and Rosheen grew up.

Expo’r Wal Goch is a social enterprise that aims to use Welsh football as a force for good in Welsh communities. Its flagship event is Gŵyl Wal Goch, an annual festival that features film, music and panel discussions, all based around football. The festival aims to explore the game's social, cultural and political power, while inspiring more people to get involved in the sport.

Released ahead of Wales’ women’s first appearance at a major international tournament, the documentary film was screened across Wales, in cinemas, community settings and at football clubs, as well as at venues beyond the Welsh border.

After an initial run of shows, the film now serves as an ongoing educational asset for schools, colleges and the FAW to use to discuss questions of diversity and inclusion in the football ecosystem in Wales.  

To find out more about Expo’r Wal Goch’s work, and where to see the film, head to the Expo’r Wal Goch official Instagram.

In the ancient Welsh tradition, where bards were sent to record heroic battles and rouse and inspire combatants, Literature Wales commissioned Sarah McCreadie, acclaimed poet and spoken word artist, to document Cymru’s efforts at the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 tournament in Switzerland. 

Utilising finances from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, Literature Wales sent Sarah out to Switzerland in July to follow the squad to Lucerne and on to St Gallen, supporting the team as they faced the Netherlands, France and England during the group stage of the tournament.

Sarah responded creatively to Cymru’s campaign, singing the team’s praises and recounting experiences as part of the Wal Goch (Red Wall), the title given to Welsh football supporters. Her words, published on the Literature Wales’ website and social media platforms during the tournament, provide a body of work that now forms a legacy for Euro 2025, promoting women’s football and the values that define Welshness. 

At the same time, it was hoped the project would fuel interest in the sport, especially from young girls, and drive participation at all levels, while also supporting young people’s literacy by inspiring them with a new passion for reading and writing poetry.

Originally from Cardiff, but now based in South London, Sarah McCreadie has performed her poetry in venues from Newport to New York, with her work published both in English and bilingually. Sarah was named as one of Craig Charles’ Poets of the Year on BBC Radio 6Music. She is an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets, a BBC 1Xtra ‘Words First’ poet and former resident artist at the Roundhouse. She has written poetry for a wide range of institutions, from Vanity Fair to Match of the Day.

Literature Wales is a registered Welsh charity helping writers in Wales to thrive, whether that be young children scribbling their first sentences in a notebook or seasoned scribes looking to make their way in the world of professional publishing. The organisation, which supports writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry alike, achieves this aim by running creative writing classes, mentorships and retreats, as well as inspiring the next generation of wordsmiths through talks from authors at schools and community events.

Alongside this, the organisation works to inspire change in the sector as a whole, amplifying unrepresented voices to ensure the Welsh literary scene reflects the diversity of the Welsh nation. The organisation also believes in the power of words to promote positive change, whether that be on topics like inequality and the climate crisis, or improving personal well-being and strengthening community ties – the latter being a core aim of their Euro 2025 poetry in residence project. 

Learn more about Literature Wales and read Sarah’s poems on the Literature Wales website and official Literature Wales Instagram account.

While the Wales’ women’s national team were out in Switzerland working hard to break down opposition defences, the British Council were endeavoring to break new ground in the education sector, with the launch of a Euros-themed classroom resource.

Launched by the British Council Wales, in collaboration with the Football Association of Wales (FAW), The Ewro2025 classroom resource is a free, bilingual resource for learners aged nine to thirteen that used the excitement of Team Cymru’s appearance in Switzerland as a springboard to explore themes like identity, gender equality, teamwork and language learning.

Shared to schools across Wales, the UK and Europe, the resource places sport at the heart of learning, encouraging pupils to see themselves as part of a wider European story, full of shared values, diverse cultures, and boundless possibilities. It also demonstrates the importance of intercultural skills and multilingualism in overcoming cultural barriers and forging global careers. 

Developed with educators and input from the FAW, the pack includes interactive lessons that explore the forgotten history of women’s football in Wales – which was banned from 1922 to 1970 – and celebrates how far the game has come. Pupils can explore football-specific vocabulary, discover the European languages that were spoken at the tournament, and reflect on gender representation and the legacy of last summer’s event.

The Euro 2025 school resource builds on the British Council’s long-standing mission to foster connections, understanding, and trust between the UK and the wider world through the arts and education. It also offers pupils and schools an opportunity to be inspired by international collaboration and to explore further possibilities for global partnerships and cross-cultural engagement.

The resource, launched ahead of the tournament, remains available to schools across Wales, the UK and internationally. More information about the educational tool is available on the British Council’s website. For more on the work of British Council Wales, follow the British Council Wales Instagram page.

We Welsh like to travel. Some of us even venture beyond the border on a permanent basis, beginning new lives in cities right around the world, from Barcelona to Bangkok.

But, despite being a long way from the green, green grass of home, Welsh people living abroad can still find a sense of community in diaspora groups, and Clwb Creative Cymru is a leading example of what these groups can achieve.

Operating in London, Clwb Creative Cymru started life as a supper club for members of the Welsh community living in the English capital and morphed into a dynamic creative community dedicated to amplifying Welsh talent, as well as celebrating and promoting Welsh identity and culture. 

The organisation achieves this by hosting regular events that bring together creatives based in the city, and further afield, to showcase their work, be it with exhibitions, film screenings or panel discussions. These events also serve as a networking space to build cross-industry links and ignite collaboration amongst the Welsh diaspora.

To celebrate the Wales’ women’s team debut appearance at the Euros, Clwb Creative Cymru curated a special day-long event, dedicated to women breaking new ground.

The event, titled Squad Goals, brought together leaders from across sport and the creative industries in London to connect, reflect, and celebrate this historic moment – not just for Welsh women, but for all women, trans, and non-binary folk pushing boundaries and reshaping their fields. While the event was dedicated to women, it was open to all genders, and people from any country in the world to share in this important moment in Welsh sporting history.

The game plan for the day saw things kicking off with a free football session for beginners. This was followed by a talk on "The Culture of Play", a discussion on the intersection of creativity across football and culture, headed by a panel of trailblazers drawn from the world of football and the creative industries.

From here, the day ramped up a notch, with networking drinks, accompanied by the musical stylings of a Welsh DJ on the decks, segueing into a screening of Wales’ opening game of the tournament versus the Netherlands.

Promoting Wales to a global audience, Squad Goals showcased Welsh talent in London, a global cultural hub, and helped to reinforce the image of Wales as a dynamic and progressive nation, projecting Welsh values of equality and inclusion by celebrating female athletes and creatives during the event, as well as through online platforms.

Learn more about the work of Clwb Creative Cymru on the Clwb Creative Cymru Instagram page.

The goal of Gogledd Cymru Actif North Wales is simple: to get everyone in North Wales moving more. 

Despite the health and wellbeing benefits that come with exercise, statistics show that in the north of Wales fewer people than ever are spending time being active. 

Gogledd Cymru Actif North Wales works to reverse this trend by promoting and supporting clubs and activity providers, helping to secure funding for the fitness sector in the region, and removing obstacles that may stop individuals from living a more active lifestyle.

With the aim of utilising the excitement and interest generated by Wales’ qualification for Euro 2025, Gogledd Cymru Actif North Wales organised 12 community festivals that ran during the build up to – and throughout – the tournament in Switzerland. These events, held in areas identified as having populations with low active lifestyles, helped to inspire younger members of the community, particularly girls and young women, to try football for themselves.

While also serving as a general celebration of Welsh success on the international sporting stage, these events, spread right across the six counties of North Wales, also provided a touchstone for the organisation to engage further with these communities on a face-to-face basis.

The team worked to identify the challenges and barriers people living in these areas face to living a more active lifestyle (as well as areas where there are opportunities to promote sport and exercise), and used this to co-develop a plan to support the communities in becoming more active in the long term.

Along with these future activity plans, the organisation will continue to support these communities through upskilling local people and providing resources to promote further activity sessions locally, with the ambition to create at least one new regular activity at each of the 12 locations, led by local people and organisations.

Learn more about Gogledd Cymru Actif North Wales’ ambitions to create a healthier Wales on the Gogledd Cymru Actif official website, or follow their progress on the Gogledd Cymru Actif Instagram account.

While most of us enjoy a kick about for fun and exercise, the sport can actually help to rebuild lives, a concept that is at the heart of what Street Football Wales is all about.

Founded in 2003, the Welsh charity helps people who have been socially isolated and excluded, by providing an open, inclusive and safe environment to play football, make friends and build self-confidence, as well as offering general support.

The organisation is headquartered in the Welsh capital, Cardiff, but has expanded its reach across South Wales, running drop-in football sessions in Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil and Haverfordwest, while also hosting an event in Rhyll in North Wales. These are open to anyone, but are focused on supporting those who face barriers to playing mainstream football, including people experiencing homelessness, refugees, recent prison leavers and those with poor mental health.

The organisation is also a national partner for the Homeless World Cup – a global event that empowers those who have experienced homelessness, while working to end the social issue of people sleeping on the streets.

Street Football Wales used financing from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund to fund three key projects.

The first was the creation of a Street Football Wales women’s team to join the Cardiff Women’s five-a-side league. This initiative offers those who enjoy Street Football Wales sessions the opportunity to play the sport in a more structured and competitive environment, while still being part of the inclusive, supportive community that defines their work. Along with offering a chance for technical improvement on the pitch, competing in a regular league also provides participants with additional feelings of confidence and fosters a greater sense of teamwork, accountability, and resilience – qualities that extend far beyond the pitch.

In tandem with this, the organisation began delivering bespoke women-only sessions in the town of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. The mixed football sessions in the town had previously been welcoming a growing number of female participants, and the charity hoped to build on this by creating a comfortable, empowering environment where even more women and girls felt confident to get involved, regardless of experience or ability.

Finally, the organisation has launched its first women-only tournaments, bringing together players from across the South Wales area to play together. These tournaments, the first of which has already taken place, provide a supportive space for women to compete, socialise, and showcase their progress, and grants female participants the chance to enjoy the sense of achievement, visibility, and team spirit that comes with taking part in larger, organised competitions.

Along with these three projects, the charity also took a women’s team to Switzerland to compete in the Street Football Euros, held alongside the Women’s European Championships.

Learn more about the work of Street Football Wales, or discover how to get involved in one of their regular sessions, by visiting the Street Football Wales official website.

The Welsh language television channel, S4C served as the broadcasting home of the Wales football team while they were out in Switzerland.

The broadcaster provided comprehensive coverage of the Welsh team’s time at the tournament, with every Welsh game broadcast live on the TV channel, as well as on its online on-demand service, S4C Clic, and BBC iPlayer.

The live matches were supplemented by a swathe of programmes focused around the team, from reports giving an insight into the atmosphere out in Switzerland to the showing of documentaries charting the turbulent history of women’s football in Wales.

A special programme about the Wales Women’s Euro Singalong, Jambori’r Ewros, was also shown on the morning of Wales’ opening match of the tournament against the Netherlands. The Singalong was a Wales-wide event that brought together school children to sing and celebrate the national team’s success – organised by The Urdd, in partnership with the Football Association of Wales, S4C, Boom Plant and BBC Cymru Wales, supported by the Welsh Government’s UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund.

This football-focused broadcasting schedule formed one part of S4C’s AmdanHi (About Her) campaign, which supports the Wales women’s team and aims to inspire more women and girls to take part in sports.

As part of the AmdanHi campaign, S4C will also be running a sports commentary talent nurturing programme, utilising finances from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund. This aims to encourage women to consider a career in sports commentary by offering training courses to develop their skills, working towards addressing the current under-representation of women in the world of sports media. 

Along with the training scheme, which will feature input from well-known industry figures, S4C will also work to ensure that more women receive work experience in the sector, while continuing to create role models that can inspire future generations to consider a career in broadcasting.

Learn more about S4C’s ongoing work to support the Wales’ women’s national team, as well as the channel’s efforts to bring more young women into sports journalism, on the official S4C website and S4C Instagram channel.

A vital lifeline for Welsh artists, Wales Arts International is the international agency of the Arts Council of Wales.

The organisation provides advice and assistance to those working in the art sector within Wales, as well as international artists, organisations and agencies interested in working in – or simply connecting with – the Welsh arts space. The organisation’s ultimate ambition is to nurture Wales’ international artistic, creative and cultural potential in a way that is fair to people and the planet.

And what better stage to showcase Wales’ artistic flair than a major international football tournament?

Supported by the Welsh Government’s UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, Arts Council of Wales’ Team Cymru International Cultural Programme served to celebrate Welsh culture on a global stage during UEFA Women's Euro 2025. 

The programme included the opportunity for up-and-coming Welsh musical artists to perform out in Switzerland during the tournament, as well as in dedicated fan zones back in Wales, exposing international audiences to Welsh music. Workshops were also held to help these musicians to develop their skills, and were also open to artists from the tournament’s host nation, promoting further collaboration opportunities in the future.

Back in Wales, work was done to develop a Cultural Values statement through a WAI-led workshop for Team Cymru partners. This, in essence, now provides a list of statements that define what Wales is all about, showcasing our nation to the outside world as one that is welcoming, inclusive, proudly bilingual, and environmentally conscious.

For something more visual, the organisation's project also included the creation of a pitch mural honouring Wales star Jess Fishlock in her hometown of Cardiff. The mural was created under the artistic direction of Cardiff studio UNIFY, building on early concept work by Welsh artist Regan Gilflin. The final piece was realised in collaboration with Dream Courts, who supported the painting of the design on site. 

In collaboration with Cardiff-based company Orchard Media, the organisation also captured engaging content in Wales and Switzerland, which will be used in wider digital campaigns around female sport plus future international tournaments like Euro 2028.

Learn more about Wales Arts International and their ongoing work on the official WAI website and WAI Instagram account.

Since 1876, The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has served as the governing body for football in Wales, with responsibility for overseeing and developing the sport across all levels, from grassroots community clubs to the national teams. Through its various subsidies, the FAW runs training courses, conferences and charity foundations, the latter focused on creating fit-for-use football facilities in Wales.

As you might expect, the FAW oversaw a number of projects and initiatives to celebrate the success of the women’s national team reaching the Euros for the very first time, with three of these made possible with funding from the UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund.

The first was a cultural engagement programme that saw the organisation enlisting the help of Welsh creatives to produce a number of works that drummed up support for the women’s team out in Switzerland. This included murals in communities where Cymru players were born and began their footballing journeys – as a nod to the importance of the grassroots game in Wales – and the erecting of art installations in Welsh cities, bringing communities together and heightening interest in the tournament.

The two other announced projects look to the future of women’s football in Wales, working on a longer-term scale. The first revolves around the creation of a dedicated Women's Coaching Network, facilitating connection and support among female coaches. In conjunction with this, the FAW is set to offer subsidised coaching courses to remove financial barriers, and deliver Women's Only/Female Game Courses, tailored to the specific needs and nuances of coaching within the women's game. It is hoped these initiatives will cultivate a generation of highly skilled female coaches, establishing a sustainable foundation for the future of women's football.

In a similar vein, the last of the three projects benefiting from the Welsh Government’s partner fund is focused on dramatically increasing the number of women and girls participating in football refereeing across Wales. The project will aim to achieve this by creating more accessible entry points into the refereeing pathway, such as through taster sessions at schools and clubs, as well as leveraging the successes of high-profile Welsh female referees to dispel misconceptions and showcase refereeing as an attainable career for all. Mentoring programmes, pairing new referees with experienced pros, and bespoke workshops around required skills to make it as a top referee will also feature as part of the project.

Learn more about the work of the FAW, as well as further details of their planned projects, on the FAW website.

Based in the town of Ruthin, in North Wales, Alaw is a one-stop shop for content creation, digital marketing and event management.

Since 2021, the company has helped to bring to life a number of large-scale events, particularly within the Welsh music scene, with notable successes including Immersed Festival, a Cardiff-based festival dedicated to rising talent (both on the stage and behind the scenes), and Sesiwn Fawr Dolgellau, a folk-themed music weekend that brings thousands of people to the town of Dolgellau in North Wales.

Last summer, however, the organisation turned its attention to football, creating a series of events to bring people together in support of the Welsh national team.

With financial support from UEFA Euro 2025 Partner Support Fund, the company assisted in curating watch parties for Wales’ matches at the tournament, hosted in community venues around the country. These events, which took place across nine different venues in total, also incorporated other cultural activities, including female-led gigs after the games had concluded.

Additionally, a side project involved supporting smaller-scale cultural events in community centres, pubs, arts centres, and grassroots football clubs during the tournament, to ensure widespread celebration of both the arts and Cymru's female footballers.

Learn more about Alaw’s work on the Alaw official website.

Founded in 1980, Ashoka’s ambition is to create a world where all citizens can contribute to change in positive ways.

The organisation aims to do this by identifying entrepreneurs who are having a positive impact through their work and supporting them, both via funding and mentorship, ultimately webbing together a network of organisations – incorporating individuals, schools and businesses – that can help to shift mindsets and catalyze changemaking for the good of society. 

Additionally, the organisation focuses on preparing the next generation to navigate this rapidly-changing world by ensuring all young people have the critical skills they need to become what the organsiation terms “a changemaker”.

Harnessing the excitement around Wales women’s national football team reaching their first major international tournament, Ashoka has launched a new project that aims to position Wales as a global leader in gender equity in sport and foster greater participation in football across the country, as well as in the other 90 or so countries where Ashoka is present.

The organisation intends to achieve this by working with key stakeholders to generate a gender-equity framework that influences policy, governance, leadership and grassroots initiatives globally, ensuring young girls face no barriers to participating in organised sport.

This initiative will be aided by a “changemaker film series” focused on female role models in football. The films will serve to inspire young girls to give the sport a go, both now and in the future, ensuring last summer’s tournament leaves a lasting legacy around inclusivity in sport across Wales and beyond.

Learn more about Ashoka’s work on the organisation’s Ashoka website.