Cumberland 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.

Ben Snowdon, Cumberland FA's Chief Executive Officer said: "Cumberland FA has a firm commitment to safeguarding and want to ensure that inclusion, positive behaviours and welfare are at the heart of the game.  

The FA’s ‘Play Safe’ weekend will not only allow us to raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding at all levels of the game, but will also highlight the role that everyone has to play in ensuring that we strive to provide a positive and safe environment for all to play the beautiful game. 

The weekend will also recognise the tremendous strides that volunteers within our leagues, clubs and referee workforce have taken and is a chance to say thank you to all those who continue to ensure that we ‘Play Safe’. 

Over the weekend we are hoping to have the grassroots game engaged in ‘Keeping Up’ with Safeguarding by joining us to collectively keep the ball up for as many touches as we can.  We ask that whatever your role you film yourself doing a maximum of 10 ‘keepy ups’ and pledge that you ‘Keep Up to Play Safe in Cumberland’ for more details on this please visit our dedicated Keep Up Play Safe page HERE"

FA Chief Executive Mark Bullingham notes: “As a youth team coach, I will be working with my club to ensure we support the Play Safe messaging. I am also pleased that the campaign has the support of the former footballers with lived experience of abuse in football, who are on our Survivor Support and Safeguarding Advisory Group. The Group has collectively said:

“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.

Read more about Play Safe on TheFA’s website

Get involved in Cumberland FA's Keep Up Play Safe Campaign