If you have just formed a team, or you are taking over one that already exists, there is a bit of admin standing between you and your first competitive kick-off. Your team needs to be affiliated with your county FA, and every player needs to be registered. It sounds more official than it is. I have been through it a few times now, and once you know the order things happen in, it is a couple of evenings of form filling rather than anything to dread. Here is how it works for the 2026/27 season.
Affiliation comes first
Affiliation is the FA's way of saying your team is a recognised part of the game, covered by the right insurance and signed up to the rules. For 2026/27 it is a requirement for any team playing in a sanctioned league, so it is not optional if you want to enter a proper competition. The process has moved recently. You now handle affiliation through the Clubs Portal at Clubs.TheFA.com, under the Teams tab, rather than the older Whole Game System route some people will remember. If your club already exists, the club secretary logs in and affiliates each team for the new season. If you are starting the club from scratch, you set that up first.
What affiliation actually gives you
When you affiliate, a few things come as part of the package rather than as separate purchases:
Public liability insurance for the club, and in most cases personal accident cover for players
Sanction to play in FA-approved leagues and cup competitions
Access to the FA's systems for registering your players
Your county FA sets the affiliation fee, and it varies from one county to the next, so check your own county's website for the current figure rather than trusting a number you read somewhere. It is usually a modest club cost rather than a charge per player.
Get your key people sorted
Before players can be registered, the club needs the right people in the right roles with the right checks in place. Anyone in a role that involves regular contact with under-18s needs an in-date FA DBS, which is the enhanced criminal record check, and your welfare officer and coaches need the relevant safeguarding and first aid certificates. County FAs will not wave a team through with an unchecked coach on the books, and quite right too. If any of that is new to you, it is worth reading up on the coaching qualifications and checks before the season creeps up.
Registering your players
With the club affiliated, player registration happens through the FA's Whole Game System. The club secretary or a nominated player registration officer logs in with their FAN and password, then adds each player to the relevant team. For youth football you will usually need each child's details, a photo and proof of age, plus a parent or guardian giving consent. Once you submit the players they do not go live straight away. Your league reviews the registrations and approves them, and only then is a player cleared to play. Leave time for that approval step, because a player who has not been approved cannot take the field, and leagues get very busy in August.
Joining a league
Affiliation lets you play in sanctioned competitions, but you still have to find and join a league. Most areas have several youth leagues covering different age groups and standards, and each one runs its own sign-up, fees and rules on top of the FA process. Ask around locally, or ask your county FA which leagues cover your age group and area. Get this sorted early. Leagues often close entries in June or July and build their fixtures over the summer, so a team that leaves it until August can find there is no space left for the coming season.
A rough timeline
Late spring or early summer: decide which league you are entering and register the team with it
June and July: affiliate the club and its teams through the Clubs Portal, and sort DBS, safeguarding and first aid for your coaches
July and August: register and submit your players through the Whole Game System, then wait for league approval
Pre-season: confirm your fixtures, then get them into one place (importing an FA Full-Time fixture list saves typing every game in by hand)
Keep the paperwork in one place
The part that catches people out is not any single form, it is losing track of who has done what. Which players are registered and approved, whose DBS is in date, who has paid their share toward the affiliation and league fees. I keep all of that alongside the squad rather than in a pile of texts and half-finished spreadsheets, so at a glance I can see the squad is fully registered and the season admin is genuinely done. However you track it, the goal is the same: turn up to the first game with every player cleared and nothing outstanding.
None of this is hard, it is just a sequence, and it rewards starting early. Affiliate the club, get your people checked, register the players, join a league, and give the approvals time to land. Do that in June and July and the season opens with a whistle rather than a scramble. If you want a hand keeping the squad and the season admin in order once you are up and running, that is exactly what Trac is built for coaches to do.