How to get your football tournament sanctioned

For the grassroots club tournaments this guide covers, sanction is the County FA approval process for running the event within affiliated football. The application now goes through The FA's Competition Portal and is submitted to the relevant County FA for review. Settle the sanction route early, because your County FA's lead time and local requirements shape the rest of the plan.

The process changed. Tournament sanctioning moved online to The FA's Competition Portal (opens in a new tab), and Middlesex FA's current guidance confirms that its old sanctioning booklet is no longer used. If you ran a tournament a few years ago and are working from memory, start again from the current guidance.

This page is written for England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own arrangements, and there is a signpost at the end.

County FA requirements and lead times differ, and they change. Before you commit to a timetable, check what your County FA currently needs and by when.

Information checked on 7 September 2026

The short version

Check your County FA's current lead time and any local set-up step before you start the application.
Make sure the right tournament roles are attached to the people who need Competition Portal access.
Review and adopt the safeguarding declaration, and prepare the risk assessment and competition rules.
Deal with insurance separately. An optional insurance field in the portal does not mean cover is optional.
Submit through the Competition Portal for County FA review, then wait for the sanction decision before treating the event as sanctioned.

Why sanction matters

Middlesex FA (opens in a new tab) warns that if a tournament that requires sanction is run without it, insurance for the organiser, participating clubs and match officials can be invalid. Oxfordshire FA (opens in a new tab) gives a similar warning about insurance and disciplinary consequences for unsanctioned events in its county.

Sanction also affects who can properly take part. Oxfordshire FA, for example, says all tournaments, festivals, friendlies and competitions played in Oxfordshire must be sanctioned there, and that County FA-registered match officials may only officiate in sanctioned tournaments. That is an Oxfordshire rule, not a national shortcut: check the position with your own County FA.

The practical point is simple: sanction is what places the event inside the affiliated-football framework. Do not assume club affiliation, league membership or a previous year's process automatically covers a tournament.

The route, in order

The national route is the Competition Portal. The completed application is then submitted to the relevant County FA for review. Local steps can sit around that national process.

Before you start, check your County FA's current tournament page. Some County FAs ask organisers to complete a local set-up form or provide information before the tournament appears in the portal. Middlesex FA currently does this.
Complete the national Competition Portal sanction application.
Submit it to the County FA for review. The County FA may ask for additional documents, team information, a fee or other local requirements before confirming sanction.

Watch for older local instructions. The FA's national tournament-sanctioning guidance was updated in July 2026, but some County FA pages or PDFs published earlier still describe their own forms or older steps. Use the Competition Portal as the current national route, then follow any additional set-up requirements your County FA gives you. If the instructions appear to conflict, ask the County FA rather than guessing.

Before you log in

Portal access depends on the role attached to your FA record. Current FA portal-access guidance (opens in a new tab) lists the tournament roles with Competition Portal access as Competition Admin, Competition Organiser, Competition Lead and Designated Safeguarding Person.

If you sign in and cannot see the tournament or sanctioning area, check the role attached to your record with your County FA before repeatedly restarting the application.

What you complete in the Competition Portal

The FA's current tournament guidance takes you through four areas: Key Officials, FA Policies & Documentation, Review Rules and Insurance. Charity and one-off matches can also use the same sanctioning route.

Key officials

Check the right people are attached to the tournament and in the right roles before you go further. The portal allows official roles to be changed in the Officials area.

FA policies and documentation

Two items are required in the national portal: the Safeguarding Declaration, which is reviewed and adopted, and the risk assessment, which is uploaded. Accounts, AGM minutes and team uploads are currently marked optional at national portal level, but your County FA can still ask for additional information or documents.

If you have not prepared the risk assessment yet, do that before trying to finish the sanction application. The FA publishes safeguarding risk-assessment guidance and a template, and our guide to deciding whether your club should host a tournament explains the practical questions it raises.

Competition rules

You upload your competition rules for review. Check your County FA's current requirements before writing them. Oxfordshire FA, for example, says it cross-references tournament rules against The FA Standard Code of Rules; do not assume every County FA uses exactly the same local review sequence.

Insurance

The Competition Portal allows an organiser to purchase insurance or upload existing cover, and currently marks the insurance field optional. Read that carefully: it describes what the portal requires to let the application proceed. It does not mean a tournament can run without appropriate cover.

The FA's safeguarding risk-assessment guidance says clubs must ensure relevant public liability and personal accident cover is in place and directs insurance queries to the County FA. Ask your County FA and your insurer about your own event rather than relying on the portal field.

Once the four portal areas are complete, you proceed to the summary and submit the application to the County FA for review.

Affiliation and the season boundary

Summer tournaments are where this can catch organisers out, because County FAs can use different season boundaries for affiliation checks.

Middlesex FA's 2026 guidance (opens in a new tab) uses 30 June/1 July: events on or before 30 June use the ending season's affiliation, while events from 1 July use the new season. Hertfordshire FA's 2026 guidance (opens in a new tab) uses a different boundary, with tournaments up to the end of July using 2025/26 affiliation and events from August using 2026/27.

That difference is exactly why you should not copy another county's date. For summer tournaments, check which season's affiliation your own County FA expects before publishing the entry information.

If your tournament is for under-18s

Separate the portal-access role from the safeguarding requirement for the event. The national Competition Portal lists Designated Safeguarding Person as one of the tournament roles that can access the system. That does not by itself tell you every safeguarding role, check or qualification your tournament needs.

County FAs can add local requirements. Hertfordshire FA's 2026 tournament guidance (opens in a new tab) requires youth events to have a named Tournament Welfare Officer who is an official of the organising club, holds a current FA DBS check and Safeguarding Children qualification, and has at least one named Tournament Welfare Officer on site throughout the event. Hertfordshire also says participating clubs should be told how to contact that person and the contact should be clearly signed at the venue.

Treat that as a Hertfordshire example, not an England-wide job title. Ask your own County FA what safeguarding role, checks, training and on-site presence it requires for your event. For the wider safeguarding picture, see our safeguarding in grassroots football guide.

How far ahead should you start?

There is no single national tournament-sanction deadline. Your County FA's current lead time is the one that matters. Hertfordshire FA's 2026 guidance, for example, asks organisers to provide event details at least two months before the tournament; another County FA may use a different timetable.

Work backwards from your own County FA's deadline and allow time for the things that have to exist before or during the application:

A confirmed venue, because the risk assessment describes the actual site and access arrangements.
Competition rules prepared and ready to upload.
The risk assessment completed and ready to upload.
The required tournament officials and safeguarding roles in place.
Any County FA set-up form or local information completed, if your County FA uses one.
Any local sanction fee or additional documents dealt with at the stage your County FA requires.

For a first event, start the risk assessment and safeguarding role checks early rather than treating them as submission-day paperwork.

What sanction does not do

Sanction matters, but it is not a general badge that says every part of the tournament has been checked or will be well run.

It does not appoint or organise your referees.
It is not itself insurance. County FAs including Middlesex and Oxfordshire warn that running an event without required sanction can affect or invalidate insurance cover, so check your own County FA guidance and policy.
It does not transfer responsibility for the risk assessment, safeguarding arrangements or the way the event is actually run away from the organiser.
It does not settle your entry terms, refund policy or cancellation position. Those still need deciding before you take teams' money.

Once sanction is confirmed

Keep the County FA's sanction confirmation and any reference it gives you. In the information sent to entering teams, make clear which County FA sanctioned the event so clubs can check the position if they want to.

Elsewhere in the UK

Sanctioning is arranged 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 step

Once sanction is settled and the date is firm, the job becomes getting teams in. Our next guide covers what entering teams need to know, what to put in your entry terms and where to promote the event.

You can also list the tournament free on FindMeFootball so teams can find it by age group, date and location. Listing is separate from sanction: FindMeFootball does not grant or verify County FA sanction simply because a tournament appears in the directory.

Common questions

Do we need to sanction a small one-day festival?

Do not assume a small event is exempt. Oxfordshire FA, for example, says all tournaments and festivals played in Oxfordshire must be sanctioned. The FA's current portal guidance also covers charity and one-off matches through the tournament sanctioning route. Check your own County FA rather than relying on the size or name of the event.

Can we start taking entries before sanction is granted?

We have not found a national FA rule that simply prohibits taking entries while sanction is pending. But do not describe the event as sanctioned when it is not. If you accept entries before the decision, tell teams that sanction is pending and make clear what happens to their fee if the event cannot go ahead.

What if we miss our County FA's lead time?

Speak to the County FA rather than pressing on. It sets the local timetable and is the only body that can tell you whether a late application is workable.

Do all entering clubs have to be affiliated?

County FAs use the sanction process to check affiliation requirements. For summer events in particular, ask which season's affiliation applies to your date and put that information in the entry pack.

We used a paper booklet last time. Is that still the process?

The current national route is the Competition Portal. Some County FAs still use local forms as an additional set-up step, so start from your County FA's current tournament page rather than simply repeating what you did last time.