Following on from yesterday’s announcement by the Government regarding schools and updated Tier arrangements the Government and the FA have amended their COVID guidance for grassroots football.
Teams
As of 12.01am this morning (31 December 2020) players, coaches, match officials etc. are not allowed to travel out of a tier 4 area or between tier 4 areas to train or play football. As it currently stands the designation of areas that affect our club are London (all 32 boroughs), Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire.
What this means is that no team is permitted to play matches against opponents from outside of our area (London). Any league or cup games that are against opponents from within the London area is able to continue.
Friendlies
As some teams will now either not, or will have fewer, matches to play we will be permitting friendlies to be played. Initially we would request that all attempts are made to play these games away from Kings College (either at other teams venues or on external pitches such as Rectory Park etc.). If this is not possible we will be permitting some friendlies to be played at Kings College. As ever any scheduled league or cup games that are still able to be played will take precedence and there will be a limit of 2 games maximum per pitch per day. Pitches must be booked via either Ben Wong or Nick Bishop who will advise if pitches are available.
Players
Additionally, any player who lives outside of a London Borough is not permitted to travel into our area to train. All teams must now check their players and ensure that any players from outside of the London area are notified of this.
At present it is not known how long these additional restrictions will be in place. As this is an ever evolving situation we will endeavour to keep everyone updated and advise of any relaxations of these restrictions as soon as we are able to do so.
We appreciate that this update may be frustrating for some of our players and teams, but we have to follow the FA guidance and government guidelines to ensure we all stay safe and are allowed to continue to play.
Also, when playing at KCPF we _must_ensure that we put out the sanitising stations at the designated areas prior to any activities commencing and that proper social distancing is employed by all attendees to matches and training when not on the pitch. Finally, we must ensure that all of our cleaning and safety protocols are followed after every session.