Dave Heddle attended the SFA East Region conference Call on Wednesday evening.
This was a call to see how clubs were coping with implementing the guidance and if they had encountered any challenges.
· Some feedback from clubs on the guidelines:
Ø The wording could have been stronger i.e. “you must follow this . . . . . ..
Ø Debate around why 10 kids :2 officials
Ø Why are some clubs following & others not?
· SFA response:
Ø SFA are reluctant to put in steps which are out of line with the Government guidelines. They have adopted a strategy of “better to say nothing than something which is out of line”
Ø The player official of 10:2 ratio follows the child protection guidelines & if there is an injury to a player then one official has to go & get/contact the parent (official only allowed to attend an injury if life & death)
Ø SFA have been warned by Jason Leitch that if teams do not follow the guidelines & there is a spike in an area where the guidelines are not being followed then he will lock down the area
Other items that were brough up during the call: -
· Training sessions should be 40 minutes in duration and be only one session per week and be fun (especially for the younger teams), consider player fitness after months playing Xbox
· Avoid goalkeeping training
· Hopeful that there might be another announcement on Thursday relaxing the guidelines further – There was nothing on Thursday and we have not received any further guidance yet.
· Hampden Sports Clinic have advised that you can register for a first aid course and complete the online part now, the practical side will be done when the virus is over – We have enquired whether any of the practical courses will be run in Fife.
· 18+ guidelines remains as is, might be relaxed as the SFA push for fans to get into matches
· Risk assessment on injury to children to be in place. Children can administer if capable or parent if available
· Personal liability insurance for amateur players
· Registration paperwork can be raised & signed later. Parent can authorise via text or email – Remember once they are on the form – they can not register for another club until the form is processed. Forms will not be processed until SYFA say it is safe to get signatures.
· Next push by the SFA is to get adults back 10-15 players back training & increase in training sessions to two per week
· There might not be any official games this year? There is a lot of talk about October but???
· SFA will be posting a questionnaire online on Facility, Player, Official challenges
· Kevin has spoken to the 4 local authorities on opening green sites, update includes:
Ø No bookings for green space
Ø Try not to take up too much space
Ø No pitches will be marked for games
Ø All looking at toilet availability
Ø Problem with 3G pitches – this may mean opening the whole facility
· New batch coach education courses are now online & SFA are looking at bringing back furlough coaches to run more courses
· If we are not following the guideline our insurance may be null & avoid
As a club we have coped relatively well. We are lucky to have the sole use of Bayview which means we have been able to have all the kids back to training in one week. We can monitor who is in and out and keep a tight control of registers etc without having to think about the general public being in the vicinity.
We have a few teams that do not have 2 officials per 10 kids, but this has been overcome by additional officials volunteering to be available when needed and community coaches stepping in to support with coaching.
Our training sessions are set for 50 mins which includes entering and exiting from the carpark.
We are looking forward to getting our adults back to training and our adult community classes restarting – hopefully, guidance will be issued soon.
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