I coach an U9 (U10 next season)
They play 7v7 at the moment and for me the biggest issue is the lack of refs.
There are 3 or 4 clubs local to us that have 5 different teams for each age group, because these clubs make a decent amount of money from the 40+ kids they have on the books at each age level they seem to have an agreement with the F.A so every week they get appointed a ref.
For context my lads played 24 games this season, we were appointed a ref only twice, no suprise they were when we played teams that are in the pocket of the F.A.
The majority of the time we are scraping round to try and get someone to referee a game, if we dont get one then its luck of the draw if you get an opposing manager who is prepared to ref half the game.... and is fair.
We played a team where their manager said they had a ref which turned out to be one of their coaches and it was the most corrupt match I have ever seen. Granted we have to fill out an online form after the game where you score the performance of the ref, opposition etc, but nothing comes of it.
Grassroots football is an absolute mess, the way funding is proportioned is a joke. I know of one team that got £5k for fitting an outside tap at their ground!
My team are F.A accredited and get absolutely minimal funding.