Before you coach
In affiliated football in England, anyone aged 16 or over in a role where they could be unsupervised with under-18s, including coaches and managers, must have an FA-accepted Enhanced DBS check with a Children's Barred List check. It must have been issued in the last three years. Your Club Welfare Officer arranges it through The FA.
The FA's Safeguarding Children course is its core safeguarding qualification for anyone working with under-18s, and leads to a certificate that lasts two years. Most leagues require it for every coach and manager of a youth team.
Rules can differ by County FA and season, so check your county's affiliation pack.
Head injuries: if in doubt, sit them out
Anyone with a suspected concussion must be removed from play straight away and must not go back on that day, even if they say they feel fine. Signs include headache, dizziness, confusion, feeling sick, blurred vision, tiredness, and being bothered by light or noise. Not everyone with concussion is knocked out.
Go to A&E straight away if they have severe neck pain, get more drowsy or confused, have a severe or worsening headache, vomit repeatedly, have a seizure, see double, or have weakness or tingling in their arms or legs. Even if symptoms clear, they should be seen by a doctor or another healthcare professional.
The return to sport is gradual, after a short rest, following The FA's concussion guidelines and the UK guidelines for grassroots sport.
Goalposts
Goals that tip over have killed children. The FA's goalpost safety guidelines say:
- Every goal, including portable and small ones, must be anchored to the ground or have a weighted back bar, following the maker's instructions.
- Nobody, child or adult, should climb on, swing on or play with the frame.
- A goal is most dangerous while it is being moved, because it is no longer fixed. Move goals with enough adults, and never let children do it.
- Take portable goals down after use, or lock them together, so nobody can use them unsupervised.
- Don't use home-made goals.
Heading
No heading in training for under-7s to under-11s, and deliberate heading is being removed from their matches. From under-12 it comes back slowly, with limits. The details are on the Laws page.
This site and children
Tekkers & Tactics is built so that nobody, adult or child, has to tell it anything about themselves. There are no accounts, messages, comments, uploads or leaderboards. The session planner keeps your choices in the page address, and the skill check keeps scores in your own browser. Please don't enter children's names anywhere, and never put children's photos or details into any planning tool you can't control.