When logged-in to club accounts on FA Whole Game, Secretaries will find the ‘Available – Affiliation 2018-2019’ tab on the menu on the left hand side of the screen.  Clicking this will generate an eight-stage affiliation form containing live data from the current club record.

Each stage is supported by a ‘How to Guide’ video animation to help.  Important requirements and information is listed below.  Additional assistance is available by contacting support@gloucestershirefa.com or calling the GFA on 01454 615888 (option 4) during office hours.

All new clubs will need to complete and return a blank affiliation form (available below) but once their details are registered on FA Whole Game they will be able to access the Whole Game facility. 

The deadline for submitting affiliation forms is Monday, 2 July 2018.

Once submitted, Gloucestershire FA will review the information to check that the affiliation costs and cup entries are correct.  We aim to complete this within two working days of the submission.  When verified, invoice(s) will be generated to allow you to pay the fees on Whole Game using a credit or debit card.  Alternatively, you can print off the invoice and make payment by bank transfer, cheque or cash.  If you are sending in a cheque, please ensure that it is clearly marked with your club’s name and invoice number(s).  Please do not send cash by post.

The deadline for payment of all affiliation and cup entry invoices is now 14 days from the date of issue.

Please note that any club failing to meet the highlighted deadlines is liable to incur late affiliation and/or late payment fees.

On receipt of the payments and information that your club has the required insurance and satisfies the Safeguarding criteria, a new affiliation number will be generated and appear on the Club’s Whole Game Dashboard.

Gloucestershire FA hopes that you will take up this opportunity to use Whole Game to affiliate your club(s) for the 2018/19 season.

Insurance

In order to satisfy affiliation requirements, all Clubs must have Public Liability Insurance cover of at least £10 million which can be purchased via Whole game (see attached brochure).  Please remember that the CountyCover policy only covers teams playing at Step 5 (Hellenic and Toolstation Leagues) and below and clubs with teams playing at Step 4 (Southern League) and above of the FA football pyramid will be required to upload a certificate of cover as evidence that Public Liability Insurance is in place for 2018-19.

Club teams must also be members of a players’ Group Personal Accident Insurance (GPAI) scheme that must meet The FA’s minimum recommended levels of cover for adult and youth teams.  See page 5 of attached Group Personal Accident Insurance brochure for more details of the different levels of cover required.  If your club has not been sent a reminder from Bluefin, GPAI can be purchased at www.bluefinsport.co.uk/ngis.

County Cups

The system will recognise the cup competitions teams took part in during the 2017/18 season.  If your adult team was a GFA cup winner, or was promoted or relegated in 2017/18, please refer to the attached ‘GFA Adult Cup Classification’ guide to determine the correct competition the same team should take part in during 2018/19.

When selecting entry to GFA Cup competitions type in ‘Gloucestershire’ or the age group (e.g. ‘U14’) to start the search.

Please note that youth cups are played on Sundays and require teams to be classified with the correct format and gender as follows:-

U12 Boys – 9v9 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U13 Boys – 11v11 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U14 Boys – 11v11 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U15 Boys – 11v11 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U16 Boys – 11v11 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U18 Youth – 11v11 & ‘boys’ or ‘mixed’

U12 Girls – 9v9 & ‘girls’

U13 Girls – 9v9 & ‘girls’

U14 Girls – 11v11 & ‘girls’

U15 Girls – 11v11 & ‘girls’

U16 Girls – 11v11 & ‘girls’

Safeguarding requirements

Youth Clubs should note other mandatory FA Safeguarding criteria for Club Affiliation:-

 • Club Secretary, Chair, Treasurer and Welfare Officer must have completed the FA Safeguarding for Committee Members (SCM).  This free course can be accessed through the following link https://learning.thefa.com/enrol/index.php?id=308

• All youth team (Under 18 and below) managers and coaches are required to have an in-date, FA accepted, Criminal Records Check (CRC) (within three years of issue date) at the point of affiliation.  Managers and Coaches can be named aganst youth teams without a FA CRC check, but affiliation cannot be approved by the County FA until they have an in-date CRC (in line with FA regulations).

• An individual cannot be a named manager/coach for more than four different youth teams within the same or different clubs, although they can be named as assistant manager/assistant coach for more than four teams.

For more information about FA Safeguarding requirements, please refer to guidance published by The FA at //www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/safeguarding