Sports club safeguarding policy

Who says a sports club needs a safeguarding policy

No single statute says "a sports club must have a safeguarding policy", but four sources between them make it a requirement in practice. The first is the statutory guidance. Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 says of sports clubs and organisations, including community amateur sports clubs and charities, that "all should have the arrangements described in this chapter in place and should collaborate to work effectively with the safeguarding partners", and that "paid and volunteer staff need to be aware of their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, how they should respond to child protection concerns and how to make a referral to local authority children's social care or the police if necessary" (paragraph 360). The arrangements it means include a clear line of accountability, a designated practitioner, clear whistleblowing and escalation procedures, safe recruitment and "arrangements which set out clearly the processes for sharing information". Anyone "involved in the provision, supervision or oversight of sport or leisure" is within the Relevant Agency Regulations, so a club the local safeguarding partners name must co-operate with them (paragraph 359).

The second is the sector standard. Working Together says that national governing bodies of sport funded by Sport England or UK Sport "should aim to meet the Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport" (paragraph 361). Those standards are published by NSPCC Sport, which was known until recently as the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU), and their third edition, from 2018, exists "to help create a safe sporting environment for children and young people and protect them from harm". Its principles include that "sporting organisations have a duty of care to children and young people who take part in sport", and its first standard opens with the sentence clubs most need: "Any organisation providing services or activities for children and young people under the age of 18 should have a child protection/safeguarding policy."

The third is the governing body. A club affiliated to a national governing body takes on its safeguarding rules as a condition of affiliation, and those rules usually include adopting the governing body's policy. In football, for example, a club welfare officer "is a mandatory role in any FA affiliated club with Youth teams"; England Athletics made a trained, DBS-checked welfare officer a condition of reaffiliation from 2025. Check your own sport's club requirements, because they differ.

The fourth is the criminal law, which has moved towards sport. Since June 2022 a person who "coach[es], teach[es], train[s], supervise[s] or instruct[s]" a young person under 18 on a regular basis in a sport is in a position of trust under section 22A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, so sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old they coach is an offence even though the young person is over the age of consent. And the Crime and Policing Act 2026 creates a mandatory duty for people in regulated activity with children, which the government's factsheet says includes sports coaches, to report child sexual abuse to the police or local authority when they are told about it or witness it. That duty needs commencement regulations and guidance before it applies, so check its status before you rewrite the policy around it, but write the policy knowing it is coming.

What the policy must contain

Standard 1 of the Standards for safeguarding and protecting children in sport describes the policy as "a statement of intent that articulates a commitment to safeguard children involved in sport from harm", backed by "linked procedures that provide clear step-by-step guidance on what to do in different circumstances if concerns arise about children's welfare or protection". Its list of essential requirements is the checklist most governing body templates follow:

• the identity of the organisation, and who the policy applies to;
• that all children and young people have a right to protection, and that their welfare is paramount;
• guidance on, or descriptions of, what constitutes abuse and poor practice, so that coaches can recognise the signs of abuse;
• an identified organisational lead safeguarding officer;
• how to respond to a child who says either they or another child is being abused;
• how to respond to allegations against a member of staff or volunteer, or another young person;
• how to respond to concerns about a child's welfare arising outside sport, or where there is no specific disclosure or allegation;
• the date the policy was endorsed or adopted, and by whom, and the date of the next review.

The criteria around it matter as much as the content. The policy and procedures must be "written in a clear and easily understood way", "publicised, promoted and distributed to relevant audiences", "approved and endorsed by the relevant management body", which for a club is the committee, and "mandatory for all staff and volunteers". The policy is "reviewed every 3 years or whenever there is a significant change in the organisation's role/structure or in relevant legislation". A club with an under-18 section should also say that the policy covers young people playing in adult teams.

NSPCC Sport also publishes a short safeguarding policy statement template, which "makes it clear to staff, parents and children what you and your organisation will do to keep children safe". It sets out the club's "duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people" and a list of commitments. The statement is the page parents read; the procedures are what coaches follow. A club needs both, and the statement should name the welfare officer and tell children and parents how to report concerns and where to go for help.

Clubs whose members include adults at risk (the older term is vulnerable adults), such as disability sections, walking sports or older members' groups, should write a policy for children and adults, or a separate adults' policy. The Ann Craft Trust runs a Sport England-funded programme on safeguarding adults in sport and physical activity, and its framework is the usual reference point for that part of the policy.

The procedures that have to sit behind it

A policy with no procedures behind it is the commonest failing, and Standard 2, "operating systems", sets out what the procedures must cover. Its essential requirements include contact details for local children's services and the police, including out-of-hours numbers; the case management process "from referral to conclusion, including disciplinary and appeals"; the designated safeguarding lead's role; "recording and records storage"; "confidentiality and information sharing"; complaints and whistleblowing; and "using digital media to communicate with children". Its criteria add that safeguarding systems must work "in conjunction with statutory agency safeguarding arrangements, including Local Authority Designated Officers" and that "there is a process for recording the range of safeguarding incidents, concerns and referrals; and for storing these securely in compliance with relevant legislation".

Standard 3, prevention, covers safer recruitment and the club's everyday risks. It expects "at least two appropriate references" for all staff and volunteers working with children who have significant contact, evidence of identity and qualifications, an induction that introduces the policy, criminal records checks where eligible with the decisions "properly recorded", a safeguarding plan for transport, trips, events, tournaments and tours, pre-event risk assessments and adequate supervision "at all times". Criterion 3.4 is the one most clubs underwrite: "There is clear guidance about the safe and appropriate use of photography, mobile phones and social media."

Standard 4 asks for codes of conduct for adults and for children, a way for each person to confirm they understand and will comply, a "process for dealing with abuse of a position of trust" and a link between breaches of the code and the disciplinary process. In practice that means a coaches' code, a players' code and a parents' code, each signed, with the club able to show who has signed which.

The welfare officer, the committee and the people who carry it

The club welfare officer is the designated person the standards and Working Together both ask for. The role is to be the first point of contact for concerns, to make referrals to children's social care, the police or the LADO where needed, to keep the club's safeguarding records, to make sure coaches have the checks and training their roles require, and to advise the committee. Standard 7 expects those with designated responsibilities to have training "to enable them to develop and maintain the necessary skills and knowledge"; most governing bodies set the course.

The committee owns the policy. It adopts it, receives the welfare officer's reports, makes sure the procedures are followed, and handles disciplinary outcomes. Standard 9 expects every incident, allegation of abuse and complaint to be recorded and kept under review so that the learning is identified and shared, which is a committee job, not a welfare officer's. For a club that is a charity, the Charity Commission's safeguarding guidance for trustees applies as well, and a serious safeguarding incident may need a serious incident report.

A concern about a coach or volunteer goes outside the club. The procedure should say that the welfare officer contacts the LADO and the governing body's safeguarding team and, where a crime may have been committed, the police, and that the club does not investigate first. Where a club removes someone from regulated activity because they harmed or posed a risk of harm to a child, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 requires a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service. Lower-level worries, the coach who gives lifts, the favourite player, the late-night messages, are recorded and reviewed for a pattern, even when no single one meets a threshold.

Records are what make any of this provable. The club keeps concern records, the allegations record on the adult's file, recruitment and DBS decisions, training records, registers showing which adults were at each session, consents and emergency contacts. Our guide to youth club and team safeguarding records covers what each contains and how long it is kept.

Adopting, publishing and reviewing it

A policy the committee adopted years ago and nobody has read since is worse than useless, because it tells parents something about the club that is no longer true. The standards give the discipline:

1. Adopt it formally. The committee approves the policy and procedures at a minuted meeting, and the policy records the date and who endorsed it.
2. Publish it. Standard 6 expects the club's commitment to safeguarding to be "openly displayed and available to all", information for young people and parents about where to go for help, and that "everyone in the organisation knows who the relevant designated person for child protection/safeguarding is and how to contact them". The website, the form club members sign when they join and the clubhouse noticeboard all carry the welfare officer's name and contact details, and the numbers for children's social care, the LADO and the NSPCC helpline.
3. Make it mandatory. Every coach, volunteer and official confirms they have read it and the relevant code of conduct, at induction and after each revision.
4. Consult on it. Standard 9 expects children, young people and parents to be consulted "as part of the review of safeguarding policies and practices". A short survey at the end of the season counts.
5. Review it. At least every three years, and sooner after a change in structure, the law or a significant case. The mandatory reporting duty, when it commences, will be such a change.
6. Check it works. NSPCC Sport offers a self-assessment tool against standards 1 to 9, and most governing bodies run a club accreditation scheme with safeguarding criteria.

A review is also the moment to test the procedures against the club as it now is. Clubs change faster than policies: a new girls' section, a disability session, a summer camp, an overseas tour, a partnership with a school. Each has its own risks, and each is a reason to reread the procedures, not only the statement.

The part of club life most policies do not reach

Look at how a junior section actually runs. The under-13s have a team group chat for parents, run by the coach from his personal phone. The coach messages the older players directly about selection. A parent messages the welfare officer at eleven at night: "can I have a word about something my daughter said about the Saturday coach?" Two coaches discuss, in a private message, whether a player's bruises are from the match. The captain's mother texts the chair to complain that the coach picked her son up from school. None of this is misconduct in itself. All of it is the club's safeguarding operating in messages the club cannot see, and some of it is the first raising of a concern the policy says must be recorded.

The standards ask for guidance on "using digital media to communicate with children" and "the safe and appropriate use of photography, mobile phones and social media", and most governing body templates respond with rules: no direct messages to children, copy in a parent, use group messages for arrangements. Those rules are right. What they rarely say is where the messages should be, and so they land on personal phones and in apps the club does not run, where a welfare officer cannot find the first message about a concern and the club cannot show later who said what to whom. A coach who leaves takes the team's messaging history with him.

The club can move team communication onto a channel it controls. ComplyChat gives a club channels for teams, coaches and the committee, in which everyone added is told the channel is on the record and can object or leave, and in which a parent or volunteer with no club email account joins with a mobile number verified by SMS. Messages are recorded on the server as they are sent, so the welfare officer can be in the channel from the start, rather than hearing about a concern days later. On paid plans the lasting record files into the club's own Microsoft 365 once its tenant is connected, under the club's own retention rules. ComplyChat is not a club management or membership system and does not replace the welfare officer's concern record or the route to the LADO; it is where the conversation happens, so that the record exists.

A question for the next committee meeting: if a parent said tomorrow that a coach had been messaging her fourteen-year-old, could the club see those messages, or would it have to ask the coach?

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are NSPCC Sport's Standards for safeguarding and protecting children in sport (third edition, 2018, with contact details refreshed in 2026), Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 (paragraphs 259 and 359 to 361), your national governing body's safeguarding policy and club requirements, and, for adults, the Ann Craft Trust's framework. Quotations are from those documents as read in September 2026. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own sport safeguarding standards, which the NSPCC Sport standards themselves point to.

This guide is a practical summary for community clubs in England, not legal advice and not a substitute for your governing body's rules. On any individual concern, call your governing body's safeguarding team, the LADO or the NSPCC helpline.

Then do one thing: find your club's policy and check three dates on it – when it was adopted, when it is due for review, and when the welfare officer's contact details were last checked – and put the answers on the next committee agenda.