The Employment Minister has challenged more football clubs to follow

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’s lead and help people in their community find work, after a visit to Craven Cottage.

Priti Patel spoke after dropping into the Championship side on November 18 to see how its community outreach work is helping to get hard-to-reach jobseekers into employment .

Fulham Football Club Foundation and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are working together to help the long-term unemployed and 16-25-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEETS) build their employability skills and find permanent jobs.

The visit by Ms Patel was organised by the Football League Trust and designed to share best practice with other clubs and organisations, including Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers and Charlton Athletic.

She said during the visit: “Employment is at a record high, unemployment is at a seven-year low and wages are continuing to grow, but we are not stopping there.

“Football clubs are much-loved institutions in the heart of their communities and are ideally placed to help their local fans find lasting jobs.

“Our Jobcentres are teaming up with organisations like Fulham Football Club Foundation across the country to help people overcome barriers and move closer to employment.

“Now, I want to challenge more clubs to follow Fulham’s lead.”

The DWP is contributing £30,000 to help Fulham Football Club Foundation continue its outreach work helping people into work.

Fulham Football Club Foundation Chief Executive, Steven Day, said: “Fulham Football Club Foundation is delighted to welcome the Employment Minister and guests from a number of football clubs to Craven Cottage today, to showcase the success of our Employability programme.”

The Football League Trust wants to recruit other clubs to follow Fulham’s example in supporting young people in jobs. It is about to launch a 12-week traineeship programme to help jobseekers build their employability skills in a sports’ setting with the aim of helping them into employment, an apprenticeship or fulltime education.

It is being piloted in 12 clubs across England, with the aim of rolling it out to 40 clubs in 2016.