As the UK’s largest independent athlete support programme, the economic impact of coronavirus has been felt by many across the UK, and unfortunately here at GSF we have also been affected. As a charitable foundation, we are funded by Better gyms, pools and leisure centres – which have unfortunately faced long periods of closure during lockdown.

We also had to take the difficult decision to suspend our activities throughout 2020. But the future looks brighter. With the dawn of new vaccines and the government’s cautious plans to ease lockdown in the coming months, we have been reviewing how we can look to re-engage with our GSF athletes and provide meaningful support to you.

An update on our programme…

Regrettably, we will not be able to process athlete applications throughout 2021. However, we’re pleased to let you know that application from December 2019 – February 2020 have been carried over for this year.

While we work to re-launch to full capacity in the future, we will be pressing pause on the award levels and physiotherapy support at this time. We understand that this may be disappointing news, but please rest assured everyone at GSF are working hard to be able to welcome back a full programme very soon.

But there is good news! We are proud to be working with partners to offer you alternative opportunities throughout this year, and we will be in touch with more information on this in the coming months – so stay tuned…

Not only that, for those who successfully applied within the above dates we have automatically extended your membership until April 2022 or you have been sent an email with instructions on how to activate your membership, so you can get back to the sport you love when Better gyms, pools and leisure centres look to re-open in the near future.

Follow us over on Instagram and Facebook for the latest GSF news.

We remain extremely proud of our athletes and the GLL Sport Foundation, which typically helps over three thousand athletes reach their potential each year, through funding by Better leisure centre memberships, mentoring support and financial grants.

Despite the challenges we have all faced in the past year, we are working behind the scenes to work to support our athletes of the future, and we will be back!

The GLL Sport Foundation is committed to supporting aspiring athletes to reach their potential. 2020 was a challenging year for everyone and we hope that the GSF membership extension for 2019 athletes went some way in supporting athletes through that difficult period. We are now in 2021 and once again it appears we have a challenging few months ahead.

Athletes will have noticed that the GLL Sport Foundation has not opened applications for this year and will not be doing so in the near future.

We are endeavoring to support athletes and as such if you completed an application between December 2019 and February 2020 this will be carried forward to this year. Athletes will receive communication via email in the coming weeks detailing the outcome of that application.

Please be aware that with the current challenges facing GLL as a Social Enterprise we have a significantly reduced capacity to answer individual inquiries and therefore encourage all athletes to see regular updates via our social media channels (Instagram and Twitter, links in footer).

We hope to see you all in our centers again soon. In the meantime we hope you and your family stay safe and healthy.

Important Information

This is important information for all athletes who applied for support. Please see the below 2020 Athlete Application Update.

Thank you for taking the time to apply to the GLL Sport Foundation in 2020 – the UK’s largest independent athlete support programme.

The unprecedented impact of the Coronavirus on our business and the world of sport in similar lockdown, means that we have taken the difficult decision to suspend the Foundation’s activities until further notice.  Therefore we will not be processing applications at this time.

We remain extremely proud of the Foundation, which typically helps more than 3,100 athletes reach their potential each year through leisure centre memberships, Physiotherapy support and financial grants. We will be back.

We understand that this will be disappointing for you and are hopeful we will be able to resume The Foundation’s activities later in the year.

We ask for your understanding at this difficult time and will contact you again when normal business resumes.

In the meantime, best wishes to you and all of your family and please stay safe.

For further information regarding ‘Better’ / GLL services during the Coronavirus pandemic please visit – better.org.uk/coronavirus