The host cities for the 2022 Women's European Championship have been given a total of £1m of National Lottery funding to increase the number of adult women playing football.

Sport England will distribute the funds through Host City Legacy Groups.

London, Trafford, Manchester, Sheffield, Rotherham, Milton Keynes, Wigan and Leigh, Brighton and Hove, and Southampton are all set to benefit.

The tournament was put back a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

It was due to be staged in England in 2021, but was put back to July 2022 following the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics and the men's Euro 2020 competition.

The plans include schemes to raise the number of grassroots volunteers and a pilot scheme to discover if parents and carers want the chance to play football at the same time as FA Wildcats coaching sessions for children.

Each Host City Legacy Group will get "approximately £100,000 to create a recreational women's football offer in each of the nine host cities".

"We know from data collected during the 2019 Women's World Cup that there was a significant increase in the number of women playing football both during and after the tournament," said Sport England's director of sport Phil Smith.

"For Euro 2022, Sport England and The FA are trying to get ahead of the game. We know the tournament will excite the fans and the public, so we want to use that excitement to support even more women and girls to start playing."