The inspiration for Football Cooperative stemmed from the success of the first recreational football site which was formed in 2017. This site has supported great understanding of participants’ needs and the complexities with delivering weekly games year round. To this end, we evolved the model to move away from one individual having sole responsibility to a more coordinated, disseminated and shared voluntary approach.

In 2020, we undertook Social Enterpreneurs lreland Idea’s Academy. This programme helped to provide us with an introduction to impact measurement.

In 2021, we formalised an enterprise-academic partnership with the South East Technological University to measure the reach and impact of our initiative. The evaluation study was pinned to the Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework and followed a certified Social Value Management process from which multiple engagements with primary stakeholder groups including participants, Game Coordinators, significant others and community partners were undertaken. See here for more info.

In 2023, we continued our partnership with SETU, this time co-funded by UEFA with a study to establish the operating characteristics, internally and externally, with the objective to develop the implementation strategy to scale up of Football Cooperative nationally and internationally.

In 2024, we renewed our academic partnership with SETU with two additional PhD studentships engaged to: 1). investigate the processes of implementing the intervention at scale nationally 2) assess the effectiveness of the Football Cooperative initiative when replicated at scale.

In 2025, we were confirmed as an awardee of the Rethink Ireland Sports and Wellness Fund. The programme aims to support projects that use sports and physical activity to have a demonstrable impact on improving mental health outcomes and social inclusion for people and communities in Ireland.