Band 8+: The first chart below gives information about the money spent by British parents on their children's sports between 2008 and 2014. The second chart shows the number of children who participated in three sports in Britain over the same time period. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

The two line charts illustrate the average amount of spending per month of British parents on their children’s sports and how many children took part in three different sports, namely football, athletics, and swimming, from 2008 to 2014.

Overall, there were increases in both average monthly expenses and the number of children participating in all three sports, with football consistently being the most popular over the period.

Regarding parents’ spending, the figures experienced a steady increase throughout the period, starting from 20 pounds per month in 2008 to just over 30 pounds per month in 2014.

As for sports participation, football remained relatively stable as the most played sport over the period, at about 8 million. However, the number of children who joined swimming was just below 2.5 million in the first year and nearly doubled to around 4 million in the final year. A similar change, but to a much larger extent, was recorded in the figures for athletics, which almost quintupled from shy of 1 million initially to approximately 5 million finally.