East Riding FA is lending its full support to Play Safe – a national FA-led campaign to raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding in football.

Play Safe is being run in partnership with the NSPCC and has the full backing of the Premier League, EFL, Barclays FA Women’s Super League and the FA Women’s Championship. It’s also supported by every County FA and is being run across all grassroots leagues and clubs.

The main element of Play Safe is a series of short films which emphasise the importance of having safeguarding embedded in all we do. The films also explain to parents/carers and children themselves know what to do if they feel unsafe or worried, because nothing matters more than making sure football is safe for everyone, especially children and young people. You can see these films below.

For Clubs And Officials

For Parents And Carers

For Children

Designated Safeguarding Officer at East Riding FA Steve Lazenby welcomes the national campaign to highlight the importance of safeguarding. 

Steve said: "At the East Riding FA, Safeguarding is fundamental in everything that we do.

Each and everyone of us that is involved in the game all have a collective responsibility to ensure that football is played in a fun and safe environment and we work to support our network of Club and League Welfare Officers, along with the volunteers who promote and embed safeguards across the game.

We would encourage everyone, regardless of your role within football, players, parents, spectators, coaches, club officials and referees to support and promote the Play Safe initiative launched this weekend.

Members of our staff and ERCFA board members will be visiting under 18 clubs over the coming weeks to talk to managers, coach's and parents about safeguarding in their club. 

It will also provide us with an opportunity to gather the thoughts of the children to enable us to shape the future of football.

We will continue these visits throughout the season at training venues around the county and at matches so that we can continue to make safeguarding a focus in clubs.

Together we can all make a difference to ensure the game is safe for all participants."

“Learning from the past is crucial, so that we can prevent the horrific experiences that happened to us and so many others in football, from happening again.

“As a group of survivors, we fully support the ethos and important messages that Play Safe conveys – whether to club officials, parents/carers and or vitally, children and young people themselves. Equally important is that Play Safe is not a one-off campaign – it will be used at key points in the football calendar to remind everyone in football, that children’s welfare and keeping them safe, should be at the heart of all that we do.”

As the Survivor Group points out, you’ll see Play Safe appearing at various points throughout the season to keep safeguarding front of mind in football. Together, we want to do everything we can so everyone – particularly children and young people – has a consistently positive experience of our great game.

You can read more about Play Safe on The FA’s website here.