After your football tournament

The short version

Anything unresolved about a child comes first

A concern raised on the day does not close because the event has finished.

If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. Otherwise, confirm that anything passed to your event safeguarding contact has been referred promptly through the appropriate club, league, venue, County FA or FA safeguarding route.

Confirm that the handover or referral has happened. Do not chase the substance of the case, ask for information you do not need, or start a parallel enquiry alongside the proper safeguarding process.

Do not investigate the concern yourself, and do not decide after the event that it was probably nothing.

Before publishing or sharing images, check that the permission you hold covers the use you are about to make. Permission for club or event use does not automatically cover a sponsor using the same image. Keep that separate from any private close-up photography restriction or identification arrangement agreed with a manager at entry.

Referee reporting windows are short

Referees report cautions, dismissals and misconduct through the FA reporting process. The report belongs to the referee; the County FA handles the disciplinary case that follows.

Current FA small-sided referee guidance requires a single-red-card dismissal and disciplinary matters involving team officials to be reported to the County FA within 48 hours. Other reporting deadlines may depend on the competition and County FA, so confirm the route and timescale for your event before the day.

Before officials leave the site, make sure they know the current reporting route and have enough team and player information to identify anyone they need to report. If a referee tells you they cannot identify a participant or has a problem submitting the report, help with the event information and involve your County FA if needed. The referee remains responsible for submitting their own disciplinary report.

When the player is not in the registered list

At a tournament, referees can be dealing with visiting teams and players they have not seen before. A participant may also be missing from the registered list the referee is working from.

The FA's current reporting system has a route for that. If the offender cannot be found in the list of registered players, the referee can manually enter the offender's name. The case is then sent to the County FA to investigate.

Make that easier by keeping the team and fixture information accurate and by giving referees a clear way to obtain the relevant team details before they leave.

Injuries and incidents

Write up injuries and incidents as soon as practical while the detail is still clear, and follow any reporting timescale set by your club, insurer, venue or governing body.

• What happened, when and where, and who was involved.
• What was done, by whom, and whether an ambulance or hospital was involved.
• Whether a parent or carer was present and what they were told.
• Anything about the site or the arrangements that contributed to what happened.

Tell your club's insurer if anything might lead to a claim and follow the insurer's process. The last point also belongs in the debrief even where the incident did not lead to a claim.

The money

Reconcile the event through the club's normal accounting process.

• Match entry fees against the teams and payment records, including any refunds or credits due under your clear, fair published terms and any applicable legal obligations.
• Settle referees and suppliers.
• Account for cash takings from catering, raffles and admissions using the club's normal financial controls. Where cash is counted, have a second person verify the total.
• Record the final outcome in the club accounts like any other activity.
• Compare the result with the break-even calculation you made before committing to the event.

If you told teams the event was raising money for a particular purpose, explain what was raised and what happened to it.

Ask the teams what it was like

Keep the feedback short enough that managers are likely to answer. Ask about the things that will change a future event.

• Did you get the number of games you expected?
• Did the day run to time?
• Was the information before the event enough?
• Was anything about the site difficult, particularly parking or toilets?
• Would you come back?

Ask referees and your own volunteers as well. They see different parts of the event from the organiser.

Turn the debrief into next year's plan

FA safeguarding guidance describes a risk assessment as a living document rather than a one-off exercise. The days after the tournament are when the reasons for changes, delays and near misses are still clear.

• What you had to change on the day, and why.
• Anything that nearly went wrong.
• Whether the emergency arrangements worked as intended, including access routes and the defibrillator plan.
• Where you were short of people, and at what time.
• What the schedule got wrong, particularly turnaround times.

For each material change, record what will be different next time, who owns it and when it needs to be done. That gives the next organiser an improvement plan rather than a list of observations.

The contact details you now hold

You have finished the event holding contact details for managers, officials, volunteers and suppliers. Keep only what you have a reason to keep and follow any existing club retention policy.

An entry address is not open-ended permission to market to somebody indefinitely. Whether you can contact someone about future events depends on who they are, how you collected the details and whether a valid consent or soft-opt-in route applies. Individuals and sole traders are treated differently from corporate contacts.

Set expectations about future-event contact when you collect details where possible, give people a simple way to opt out and respect it. Do not pass contact details to a sponsor or anybody else unless the people concerned agreed to that use.

Closing the site down

• Return borrowed equipment and hired items, and report any damage.
• Walk the site for litter, tape, pegs and anything left behind.
• Hand back keys and confirm with the venue that everything is settled.
• Log lost property and follow the venue or club's existing process for collection, storage and disposal.
• Thank the volunteers, referees and anyone who lent equipment or helped the event run.

Setting up next year

Teams that entered this year are a natural audience for a future event, subject to the contact and marketing rules above. Do not announce a date you have not confirmed.

• Check next year's venue availability first.
• Check your County FA's sanction lead time and any changes to the sanction route.
• Only then confirm the date and invite eligible teams back using a lawful contact route.

Keep the event notes with the debrief so the next organiser is not starting from nothing.

If somebody else will run the tournament next year, hand over a usable record of the venue, contacts, suppliers, decisions, problems and actions rather than relying on one person's memory.

Elsewhere in the UK

Discipline, safeguarding and reporting arrangements are set separately in each nation. Start with the association that covers you.

• England: The Football Association and your County FA.
• Scotland: the Scottish Football Association.
• Wales: the Football Association of Wales.
• Northern Ireland: the Irish Football Association.

Next year's event

Once next year's date and sanction route are settled, you can list the event free on FindMeFootball. Teams can find listings by age group, date and location, and organisers can manage enquiries and team status from the dashboard.

You can also publish fixtures, results, tables and knockout stages where the relevant age-group and competition rules allow.

A FindMeFootball listing does not mean we have sanctioned, approved or verified the tournament. Sanction remains a matter for the relevant football association and County FA.