Tournaments
Tournaments, Festivals and Charity Matches in Hertfordshire
All such events taking place in the county must be sanctioned by Hertfordshire FA
Should an event not be sanctioned, all competing clubs and participating referees will not be covered by their insurances and could be liable to disciplinary action. All teams taking part must be affiliated to their relevant County FA (for tournaments up to the end of July this is for the 2023/24 season, events from August onwards require affiliation for the 2024/25 season).
Tournaments, friendlies or competitions involving children under the age of 6 will not be sanctioned. The FA regulations are clear and state "A child who has not attained the age of 6 shall not play and shall not be permitted or encouraged to play in a match of any kind". All children who have attained the age of 6 can therefore only play in Under 7 age groups.
Want to organise your own Tournament, Festival or Charity Match?
Help with planning your event
If you are looking to put on your own event, The FA have put together a guide intended to help you organise a successful tournament that will run effectively and efficiently, with lots of useful information and handy checklists to make sure you have everything covered.
Template Tournament Rules
A key part of running a tournament will be setting out appropriate rules for everyone taking part. To help with this we have drafted a template set of rules which must be used as a basis for any tournament taking place in the county and amended as necessary to suit your competition.
How to get it sanctioned
Once you are ready to make it official, we have put together a step by step guide to help you understand the process of getting it sanctioned by us which you can download by following the link below. If you have any further questions please email contactus@hertfordshirefa.com.
Once completed, organisers looking to recruit referees for a sanctioned tournament, festival or charity match can contact referees@hertfordshirefa.com for further assistance.** AFFILIATION NUMBERS ** - Please be aware that following changes to the affiliation process implemented from the start of the 2023/24 season, clubs will no longer receive an affiliation number. Instead affiliation is completed on a team-by-team basis with each team within a club now having its own individual affiliation status.
If proof of affiliation is requested (for the purposes of tournament entry etc), we would suggest taking a screenshot of the Teams tab in Club Portal.