Friday 8th August 2008

A proposal has been made by the SFA, and is supported by both the SWF Youth Committee and SWF Board, to change the playing season for SWF Affiliation Youth clubs.

To this end the youth leagues will commence their season in August 2008, the competition programme will run until the last weekend in November 2008. League's who have 11/12 or more teams will be halved geographically and will play each other twice.

League's who have 8 or less will play each other twice.

For the 15's league covering South West/West/ Central/South East - we have asked two teams to move - 1 from Central - 1 from South West and they will play in the South East/Central league for this short season only moving back to their original leagues for next March.

- This will give a 12, 8,8 - which shall be dealt with as above.

Fixtures will be issued early next week and the leagues should commence 23/24th August. It is thought that teams in the youth leagues play each other twice during this period, depending on the composition or number of teams in the league.

A ‘Forum Meeting’ to provide further information will be held next week and should give greater clarity. Once the details have been finalised the website will be updated accordingly with the fixtures for all youth age groups.

During the ‘closed season’ period, the SFA would look to work with the clubs to support education and development for coaches and volunteers working in the clubs and to deliver club development sessions. Longer term we would also look to establish futsal or indoor football competitions for the youth players during this period. Clubs will then be required to re-affiliate to SWF and to register their players again for the commencement of the new season in March 2009. With registering players and affiliating the clubs during the winter months, this will mean there is less pressure at this time of year, as opposed to the summer months when players and club personnel are on holiday.

As clubs have already paid their affiliation and registration fees for the season, this will be taken into account when SWF sets the fees for the new season, costs will be balanced out to ensure the clubs effectively pay for one and a half seasons until the end of 2009’s playing season.

The SFA will plan and progress the cup competitions with SWF, regional League Management Committees and the SWF Regional Committee representatives to ensure they have a timetable of when these will commence and conclude. It is their intention to work with the Scottish FA Regional Managers and Facility providers to ensure facilities would be available for clubs during the June and August of 2009.