About Sports Aid Trust

Our history

SportsAid is the charity for sport that has financially supported thousands of talented young sportsmen and women every year since 1976.

Over the years, SportsAid has evolved into a unique network of fundraising and grant-making bodies, united by the sole belief that young people can improve their lives through sport.

SportsAid now gives grants to youngsters from more than 60 able-bodied and disabled sports who are members of national squads and have displayed outstanding potential, yet are desperately struggling to meet the ever-increasing cost of their sporting development.

For these youngsters, and the families that support them, the promise of help from the Lottery Sports Fund remains a distant dream. Their needs are now and the only organisation they can turn to for direct financial assistance is SportsAid, because it distributes its own funds on the basis of talent and need.

Without SportsAid's help, many would simply have to give up on their sporting dreams as a recent survey showed that, on average, a SportsAid grant recipient spends over £5000 a year on travel, training and equipment.

Matthew Pinsent, the three times Olympic champion who first received a SportsAid grant as a junior in 1987, said, "if every person who cheered us on at the Olympic final in Sydney gave just £1 to SportsAid, Britain would have many more reasons to be proud."