Team Talk

2020-21 Affiliation Window Now Open

The window to register clubs for the 2020-21 football season is now open

The affiliation window for the new season will be open from Wednesday 6th May.  Below you will find details of temporary changes to the affiliation process plus other FA updates.

The following temporary changes have been made by The FA in response to Covid-19.

1. Lifted the requirements within the affiliation process to enable County FAs to affiliate teams where:
a. A coach/manager and/or assistant does not hold an in-date accepted DBS Check;
b. A Club Welfare Officer (CWO) does not hold an in-date accepted DBS Check:
c. A CWO has not completed the relevant safeguarding training (Safeguarding Children Workshop (SCW), Welfare Officer Workshop (WOW) and online Safeguarding for Committee Members, (SCM).

For the avoidance of doubt, these requirements are being lifted purely so that clubs can affiliate and coaches and CWOs must have an accepted DBS Check prior to carrying out their roles.

2. Extended the requirements for renewals of DBS Check certificates that expire between 1st March and 1st October 2020, by 12 months. This will affect approximately 40,000 renewal checks, if all these individuals reengage with football when it restarts.

While Club Chairpersons, Secretaries, Treasurers and Welfare Officers will have completed, or must still complete, the free online Safeguarding for Committee Members’ (SCM) course, and qualified coaches in clubs will have completed the Safeguarding Children Workshop (SCW), The FA will also promote the free online ‘FA Playmaker’ safeguarding module to CWOs and coaches who do not have the SCW, as well as to parents. This will help to raise basic safeguarding awareness levels more generally in clubs.

The requirement for at least one coach per youth team to have an FA Level 1 coaching qualification in FA Charter Standard clubs is currently paused and will be resumed at the earliest opportunity to continue to support coaches working with children. Coaches who already have their Level 1 qualification, whose safeguarding children training is out of date, will be guided to complete the free online safeguarding re-certification course to refresh their safeguarding awareness.

The FA have an excellent ‘training’ platform which can be accessed here:  The training ground

Here you will find guidance on Player Registration,  Full Time, The Match Day App, running an online AGM and much more.

Player Registration webinars – Should you wish to appoint a member of your club to the role of ‘player registration officer’, or you wish to refresh your memory, there are daily webinars during May detailing the process.  To register please 'Click Here'

You may have noticed a change to your whole game log in page.  Each FAN must now have a unique email address. So, if you do have multiple FANs with the same email address you will not be able to log in.  Whole Game will provide a link which will enable you to rectify this. 

Please do not hesitate to get in touch should you have any queries by clicking below.