BRADFORD City’s Community Foundation has been granted £34,000 for a project to attract more ethnic minority supporters.

One City - Building a Stronger Britain Together aims to encourage more members of the black and minority ethnic (BME) communities to become Bantams fans.

It will run for a year from next month and will look to start Bradford City supporters’ clubs for different ethnic minorities in the district, including people originally from Eastern Europe and refugees.

The project will hold a number of events throughout the year and bonding sessions with these supporters at matchdays at City home games.

The cash will also be spent on a development centre, run by the foundation, to untap young footballing talent from ethnic minority groups in the district. The centre, seen as a stepping stone to the club’s academy, will be run at an unconfirmed location.

The campaign will kick-off at an invite-only event held on Wednesday, December 6, from 10.30am, at the 1911 Club at City’s Valley Parade stadium.

The Bradford City Community Foundation, the community charity of Bradford City, will also invite supporters from different ethnic groups to attend each of the club’s home games between January and April next year and then the start of the 2018/19 season, while the project continues.

The cash for the project has been granted by the Home Office’s Building A Stronger Britain Fund.

One City will work alongside, and build upon the success of, the Bangla Bantams, a supporters’ group set up in February 2015 to promote and encourage participation by the South Asian community in grassroots football in the district.

Paula Helliwell, the foundation’s projects manager, said: “It is an important project.

“This is just one of the things we are going to do.

“We want to give them a feeling of belonging in Bradford, to the city and aim to build civic pride.

“The community foundation and the club does quite a bit of work, but you can always do more.

“We have done a lot of work with the Bangladeshi community around the stadium, but not engaged with other groups around the city yet. We want to make them welcome, so we will be buddying up with them.

“There are some groups which we have not engaged with yet.

“We are working closely with the prevent officer and the Hate Crime Alliance as well as with the local Bangladeshi centre BEAP, who set up the Bangla Bantams supporters group and, as part of the project, will set up more.”