Football Clubs
American football really started to grow across Great Britain in the 1980s when coverage of the NFL started on Channel 4 and whilst still a relatively new sport in Great Britain when compared to many of the indigenous sports there are over 150 football clubs around Great Britain. They form part of the fabric of BAFA and in the relatively short amount of time the sport has been on these shores, many have positioned themselves at the heart of their local communities.
Clubs vary in size and location. Some clubs host just one team; others host multiple teams across a number of age ranges and across both contact and non contact disciplines. There are a number of teams across British universities, colleges and schools as well as the community.
This section of the BAFA website is designed to provide information to a breadth of users. For those people interested in find a club the ‘Club Finder’ section enables you to look for clubs in your area. For those people who are involved in the management or development of a club, the ‘Managing your Club’ and ‘Diary’ sections are designed to signpost you to a wealth of resources which will support your club in strengthening its provision to the members, giving them the high quality experiences they demand as they invest their leisure time and money in the sport.
Managing a Club
Please ensure you read the Welfare section of the BAFA website. This provides details of some of the key policies and guidance which BAFA issues to clubs and teams.
The vast majority of BAFA’s clubs are run by volunteers and are funded by member subscriptions. BAFA is currently working with a range of partners to provide enhanced support for those volunteers who set aside countless hours in order to establish a club and manage its day to day operations.
There are many responsibilities for club committees as they seek to ensure that their club provides the highest quality environment for its members and complies with both national and BAFA standards of good practice. These include but are not limited to financial management, equality compliance, strategic planning and development, partnership creation and support across a host of potential partners from schools to facility providers, promotion and sponsorship, safeguarding, and game day management.
The most effective way for clubs to develop and improve is to be involved in a planning process that will ensure that all key areas of club management are addressed to a national minimum standard.
Clubs should look to have documentation to support the following (this list is not exhaustive but intended to be indicative):
Constitution
Development Plan
Role Descriptions (Coaches, Committee, Volunteers)
Codes of Practice
Equality Statement
Equality Action Plan
Welfare Documentation including Safeguarding
HSE Injury Report Documentation
School / Club Links Agreement
Risk Assessment Forms
Volunteer Agreement Form
To these ends BAFA is pleased to endorse the resources provided by runningsports and ClubMark.
BAFA encourages all member clubs to sign up runningsports as Network Members. Sign up can be achieved through the runningsports website which is available here
BAFA also encourages clubs to strive for ClubMark recognition. A host of key documents which a club may require can be found here on the ClubMark website
Further information on Equality can be found here:
Equality Standard in Sport
Equality Act
Workshops
As part of the relationship BAFA has with runningsports BAFA will support the hosting of club and volunteer development days delivered by runningsports tutors. As the BAFA Governance Review nears its conclusion BAFA will also work to provide downloadable club development documents to guide committees in the running of their clubs.
A number of BAFA clubs have already started to work towards achieving Clubmark recognition. Clubmark is the only national cross sports quality accreditation scheme for clubs with junior sections. It is built around a set of core criteria which ensure that accredited clubs operate to a set of consistent, accepted and adopted minimum operating standards.
Equally, BAFA clubs have started to look in depth at the Government’s Community Amateur Sports Club scheme (CASC). Registering as a Community Amateur Sports Club can provide a range of financial benefits for community sports clubs.
CASC registration benefits:
- Both property (asset) and non-property (non asset) owning clubs can significantly benefit from the scheme. The key benefits of CASC registration include:
- 80% mandatory relief on business rates. Local authorities can offer an additional 20% relief to community sports clubs but it is entirely at their discretion.
- The ability to raise funds from individual donations under Gift Aid. A registered CASC can reclaim up to 28p in tax for every £1 donated
- Tax free income from interest and capital gains (used for qualifying purposes) CASCs are exempt from Corporation Tax on profits derived from trading activities if their trading income is under £30,000 pa.
- Profits derived from property income are also exempt for CASCs if gross property income is under £20,000 pa, of particular relevance following the abolition of the nil rate band
- CASCs whose income does not exceed these thresholds will no longer be required to complete an annual Corporation Tax return
It should be noted that whilst many clubs will and do benefit from CASC registration, it is not right for every club and the decision to register should not be taken lightly. Further details on CASC can be found here
Add the Workshop Calendar to Your Website
You can now add the runningsports workshop calendar to your website. All you need to do is copy and paste the code below into your webpage.
If you have any problems implementing this code, email info@runningsports.org.
<iframe src="https://www.runningsports.org/club_support/all_resources/workshops/WorkshopCalendar?layoutImmediate=embedded" width="965" height="650"> If you can't see this, your browser doesn't understand iframes. However, you can still access the runningsports <a href="/club_support/all_resources/workshops/WorkshopCalendar.htm" target="_blank">Workshop Calendar</a>.</iframe>