For those clubs who have just joined us, we provide regular Updates which carry important information that you, as club officials, need to know about and share with your managers and coaches. These Updates are either weekly or fortnightly throughout the season. If you miss one, past issues can be found on YELonline.com.
This Update covers
Player Registrations
Fixtures
Referees
FA Full-Time & YEL Scoreline access
Player Registrations
On behalf of the league, massive thanks go to all club secretaries for the unbelievable effort you have all made to navigate what, at times, has been and probably still is an extremely challenging and time consuming task. Many of you (approximately 50%) have registered players using ‘offline’ consent. The FA have sent very mixed messages on this one and I can understand the confusion which has arisen. We, as a league, have also received conflicting information suggesting that ‘offline’ consent is an option and yet on the next email we are being told to inform our clubs it is mandatory – really not helpful. We have sought clarity and yet the same messages are being sent out. The main thing is that players are registered in order for us to be confident in reintroducing player ID checks for all YEL teams – U7 to U14 – prior to the start of the game. This is our priority – registered and insured players of the correct age are playing in YEL organised matches.
According to the latest figures we have available, we have just over 11,000 players registered which means there are still another 3-3,500 that need adding to the system. If you haven’t yet completed the process, can I please ask that everyone does everything they can to get this over the line in time for the start of the season in14 days time. If you are struggling then please email your County FA and they will do their best to assist although, they too are struggling with the system.
Fixtures
All fixtures are now on Full-Time – U7s Sunday being the last to be completed yesterday. As is league policy, all mini soccer fixtures are defaulted to 10am and 9v9/11v11 to 11am. This is to try and ensure that we cover as many matches as possible with the limited number of referees available by getting them to do back to back games. We appreciate that some clubs have limited pitch space and may need to change them. Can we ask that all home club secretaries check the fixtures no later than 11 days prior to the game and make whatever changes are necessary to KO times no later than 10 days before the date of the game which is when you still have control over the kick off times without reference to the opposition (provided it is no earlier than 10am) Anything earlier ie 9.30am which is the earliest permissible KO time under YEL rules, you do need to consult with the opposition regardless of how much notice is given. It is therefore really important fixtures are looked at 11 days prior to the games so that everyone is aware of the KO time and just as importantly we are able to see the correct KO time when doing referee allocation.
Referees
This will come as no surprise to anyone who follows football closely. THERE IS A MASSIVE SHORTAGE OF REFEREES ACROSS THE COUNTRY. We have not been immune to this and our numbers of registered referees is roughly half of what we had this time last year. At that time we were able to cover roughly 1 in 2 U9-U14 games. We alerted the County FA to this potential nightmare scenario last November, expressing our concerns and asking them to make plans to recruit 200 new referees to cover the ones who weren’t recruited last year due to COVID and the new ones that we needed this year. Frustratingly, our concerns have not been addressed despite numerous reminders, and we have received details of less than 50 new referees. This has a knock on effect through the youth game and into the adults who are also struggling. Add to this technology issues with the new referee re-registration process and we have the perfect storm. Currently we have 125 referees registered (250 last year) which will reduce our coverage down to 1 in 4 or, at best, 1 in 3 games. Priority will be given to the older age groups, where possible and depending on referee availability/location/qualification, as competition tends to be more intense the older the players. Can I please ask that you notify all of your teams of this situation and make sure they are prepared either by having a willing parent to officiate home games or, ideally, a local qualified referee who is happy to cover their games. We will do our best with the limited resources available but I have to advise this season will not look pretty for a refereeing appointment point of view. If you secure the services of a local qualified referee, please email the details to Sarah – YEL Referees appointments – referees@yelonline.com – and give her the details of when they are available and which of your games they are able to cover at least 7 days prior to the game. This will then help her allocate the scarce resources to those less fortunate.
FA Full-Time and YEL Scoreline access
We have sent an email out to all team contacts/managers requesting them to log into both FA Full-Time – https://fulltime-admin.thefa.com and YEL Scoreline https://portal.yelscoreline.com/user/login. Full-Time uses the same username (email address) and password as their access to Whole Game System. Scoreline is their registered email address and the password they have set up. It is important they access bot systems so that we know there are no problems. Any of your managers having issues should get in touch with the YEL Office ASAP – yel@live.co.uk – and let us know so it can be resolved. IT IS ESSENTIAL THEY CAN ACCESS THESE TWO SYSTEMS – Please share this message with them via club communications, managers meetings etc to remind them to do it.
Rob Harwood CEO
YEL OFFICE