Aston Villa and the Kaizen Foundation partner for ‘Play it Forward’ project
The partnership will work together to fund community led spaces, and tackle inequality of opportunity and facilities for physical activity.
Key points:
– The partnership, formerly known as the “Playzones Programme,” will fund 350 hours of activity on football pitches in Birmingham
– It will also finance the creation of community-led spaces
The Kaizen Gaming-funded Kaizen Foundation has teamed up with Premier League football club Aston Villa to help develop its “Play it Forward” project.
The campaign was previously know as the “Playzones Programme” and is aimed at trying to redress social inequalities that lead to a lack of access to the facilities, and opportunities needed to take part in physical activity.
This initiative will try to achieve these aims by funding community-led spaces and by financing 350 additional hours of activity on pre-existing small football pitches in lower socio-economic areas of Birmingham.
Aston Villa, a Birmingham-based club, will lend the expertise of staff within the organisation to help with grants, fundraising, marketing and communications, governance, monitoring, evaluation and impact, health and safety, safeguarding and risk management.
Guy Rippon, Head of Foundation and Community at the Aston Villa Foundation, said: “The community and charitable sectors in Birmingham are going through their toughest period in recent history, with vast funding cuts and community need at its highest. The ‘Play it Forward’ project will empower the voluntary and community sector with their own ambitions to grow as self-sustained organisations, as well as reduce the gap in young people’s access to physical activity spaces in urban environments.”
For its part, the club points to its commitment to working with young people around the vicinity of their stadium and the wider Birmingham area to improve the landscape of opportunity.
Good to know: Betano, a Kaizen Gaming brand is Aston Villa’s main shirt sponsor, though for the club’s first Champions League appearance last year, Betano donated the space to Acorns, a local charity that runs a children’s hospice
The Kaizen Foundation is a social improvement enterprise with a stated focus on society, education and the environment.
A collaboration between the foundation and UEFA was announced in April 2025 – together, they sponsored an amputee football match to promote inclusion through sport.
Panos Konstantopoulos, President of the Kaizen Foundation, said: “As an international foundation, it is a privilege to combine our global perspective with the Aston Villa Foundation’s local expertise to deliver meaningful impact here in Birmingham and exactly where it is needed the most.”
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