Club affiliation opens from Monday 19th June.

• Club affiliation is now open via the Clubs Portal
• Guidance on how to complete your affiliation can be found here
• The cost to affiliate a team is £25 per junior team and £35 per adult team

Why do I need to affiliate?

Affiliation acts as a quality assurance and as a safety net to help protect players, clubs, officials and administrators throughout the game.

To participate in a FA or County FA sanctioned league and/or competition your teams must be affiliated

How much does affiliation cost?

We’re delighted to announce that the cost of affiliation has, once again, been frozen for 2023.

The cost to affiliate a team is £25 per junior team and £35 per adult team.

How do I affiliate?

Affiliation for the 23/24 season will take place on the Club Portal, as opposed to the Whole Game System which was used previously. The Club Portal will provide users with a more slicker and efficient affiliation experience.

A step-by-step process on how to complete your affiliation can be found here.

Key changes you need to be aware of:

You now have the ability to affiliate your club by team rather than as a whole club. The main benefit of this is that your entire club does not have to wait for one team to resolve the mandatory requirements before affiliating, so individual teams that are ready to affiliate can do so and non-compliant teams can complete their affiliation at a later date.

What are the mandatory requirements?

Football is continually adapting to ensure that the game is safe and inclusive for all that take part, these new mandatory requirements look to ensure this continues as we move forward.

-  All junior coaches are now required to hold an in date Safeguarding Children Course as well as an FA DBS.
-  All open aged teams that have players aged under 18 are required to have a manager with an in-date FA DBS.
-  Clubs with adult teams will require a named Welfare Officer to be listed in roles on Club Portal. There are no required qualifications for the 2023/24 season, but from the 2024/25 season, completion of a player welfare course will be required.
-  Clubs with disability adult teams will require an adult disability welfare officer to be in place, who will be required to complete the Safeguarding Adult Course.
-  Every club will be required to complete a Safeguarding Declaration (or multiple if affiliating adult and youth teams), which will be dependent on the type of organisation you are, and the number of teams within your organisation. This will ensure key messages from the grassroots game to the professional game are included in this declaration, which will be an annual process and expire each season.
-  All required courses and qualifications can be found on the England Learning website.

Find out more

Public Liability and Personal Accident Insurance

For the 23/24 season, clubs can now purchase both their Public Liability Insurance and Personal Accident Insurance via Sheffield FA, as opposed to in previous seasons where clubs were required to source their own Personal Accident Insurance and upload it into the Whole Game System.

By purchasing your Personal Accident Insurance and Public Liability insurance through us, you are able to automate your affiliation. This means your affiliation can be automatically approved without a review from a County FA member of staff, resulting in a quicker and simpler affiliation.

Find out more

County Cup Entry

Entering County Cups is no longer part of the Affiliation process. Clubs are required to manually enter County Cups in Club Portal. Please note that the deadline to enter our County Cup competitions is Tuesday 1st August 2023.

Find out how to enter County Cups

What if I need support?

Visit affiliation knowledge base to find answers to frequently asked affiliation questions. Here you will find articles and helpful guides to guide you through the process.

ACCESS KNOWLEDGE BASE

If you cannot find an answer to your query in our helpdesk, the most efficient way of contacting our team is by raising a support ticket.

SUBMIT A TICKET 

For urgent affiliation queries, you can contact individual staff members via their mobile. Please note that we no longer operate a central telephone number, and that the most efficient way to get in touch with a member of our team is by raising a support ticket.

VIEW STAFF DETAILS