Sport England and Premier League have signed a three-year partnership deal which aims to create grassroots football opportunities for tens of thousands of young people.

In total, the scheme will see £5.6m being invested annually in expanding and improving two community programmes - Premier League 4 Sport (PL4Sport) and a rebranded Kickz.

The funding will be equally split with each partner committing £1.3m per year to PL4Sport and £1.5m per year to the new Kickz initiative. In total, £16.8m will be ploughed into the two schemes.

PL4Sport was created in 2009 and has so far engaged 60,000 young people in a wide range of sports.

The funding will allow the programme to add athletics, boxing, golf and tennis to the eight Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth sports already on offer through PL4Sport.

Since 2006, Kickz has helped 71,500 youngsters to get involved in sport, targeting the hardest to reach young people from disadvantaged areas.

The expansion of the re-branded programme is hoping for an extra 30,000 young people to be engaged over the next three years.