Tier 4 - Fixtures Update

Following the latest Government announcement and further clarification from the FA, the league committee held a meeting on 30th Dec.

With all the areas now covered by the league in Tier 4, the latest FA guidance is that players may not cross between Tier 4 areas and that these areas are as defined on the following web page - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area.

We also recognise that a significant number of our member clubs are based close to the borders between areas and many of these will have registered players in more than one area for some/all of their teams. This will no doubt mean that there will be teams in the league who may/will unfortunately not be able to field teams during the current restrictions.

We are also aware that a number of schools are delaying restarting following the Christmas holidays and that there will be a significant number of parents who will not be comfortable for their children to play football with the current infection rates in some of our areas.

As you know, the league has already cancelled fixtures up to 10th January and, as a result of last night’s meeting, the committee has taken the difficult decision to cancel all games on the weekend of 16th/17th January too.

We are mindful that some clubs/teams will not have players in different areas and that these clubs/teams may wish to play games against teams in their local area on these dates and we will be prepared to sanction games played where there is no breach of these restrictions.

However, we recognise that club committees will need to be aware of these fixtures and ensure that no participants will be crossing between areas so we will only be accepting fixture requests from the club Covid Officers who are listed in that role on the league’s MemberMojo contact system and will require confirmation from the Covid Officer of both clubs before sanctioning games.

We will be working out the full procedure for these fixture requests over the next few days and this will be communicated directly to all club secretaries & Covid Officers.

Please be aware that anyone participating in non-sanctioned games may not be covered by either the club’s personal accident or public liability insurances and may also open clubs up to punishment from their county FA.

We will continue to monitor the situation and issue further updates as & when required. If you have any questions regarding this, or anything not covered by this e-mail, please send them to Covid-19@nehyl.org.uk.