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DUNBAR UNITED

SFA ENTRY LEVEL LICENSE
The club can this evening confirm our intention to immediately apply for an Entry Level License to the Scottish Football Association.

Licensing requires that Dunbar United meet specific standards. The standards are presented in the form of criteria under four headings:

• Ground Criteria
• First Team Football Criteria
• Youth Team Football Criteria
• Legal, Administration, Finance and Codes of Practice Criteria

Licensing will help to establish benchmarking information and ensure forward progress continues to be made on and off the pitch. Football within the community will benefit from the adoption of quality management practices. Licensing aims to ensure that we meet and maintain certain standards and that these standards are continuously improved upon over a period of time. Standards that could immediately see Scottish Cup Football being played at New Countess Park, and may ultimately see the club reaching Scottish League status.

The overall objective of licensing is to raise standards within Scottish football, including but not limited to, safety, infrastructure, youth and coaching, medical, corporate governance and general ethical standards.

The benefits of achieving an entry level license transcend beyond the football club and into the wider community. We are delighted to have the full support of New Hallhill Sports Centre as we embark on this process.

We also now call on members of the local community who feel they can support any element of the process, to come forward and join our small committee. We need your help now more than ever to take the club into a new and exciting era.

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4 hours ago, Burnie_man said:

DUNBAR UNITED

SFA ENTRY LEVEL LICENSE
The club can this evening confirm our intention to immediately apply for an Entry Level License to the Scottish Football Association.

Licensing requires that Dunbar United meet specific standards. The standards are presented in the form of criteria under four headings:

• Ground Criteria
• First Team Football Criteria
• Youth Team Football Criteria
• Legal, Administration, Finance and Codes of Practice Criteria

Licensing will help to establish benchmarking information and ensure forward progress continues to be made on and off the pitch. Football within the community will benefit from the adoption of quality management practices. Licensing aims to ensure that we meet and maintain certain standards and that these standards are continuously improved upon over a period of time. Standards that could immediately see Scottish Cup Football being played at New Countess Park, and may ultimately see the club reaching Scottish League status.

The overall objective of licensing is to raise standards within Scottish football, including but not limited to, safety, infrastructure, youth and coaching, medical, corporate governance and general ethical standards.

The benefits of achieving an entry level license transcend beyond the football club and into the wider community. We are delighted to have the full support of New Hallhill Sports Centre as we embark on this process.

We also now call on members of the local community who feel they can support any element of the process, to come forward and join our small committee. We need your help now more than ever to take the club into a new and exciting era.

All really laudable stuff...

I just wish folk would learn how to spell LICENCE (the noun, not the verb)!

Perhaps they now have American backers?

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12 hours ago, Edinburgh Hatter said:

All really laudable stuff...

I just wish folk would learn how to spell LICENCE (the noun, not the verb)!

Perhaps they now have American backers?

Noticed it too, does my head in!

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14 hours ago, Edinburgh Hatter said:

All really laudable stuff...

I just wish folk would learn how to spell LICENCE (the noun, not the verb)!

Perhaps they now have American backers?

    

Edited by imho
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5 hours ago, Ginaro said:

And use the correct SFA logo - not the one that was superseded 7 years ago...

I don't know anything about logos but just googled SFA and this is what came up. Is this this the right or wrong logo that the SFA are showing.? Perhaps you could show the correct logo that Dunbar should have used and not the one they copied from the SFA website.

Scottish Football Association

Organization
Scottish Football Association
The Scottish Football Association is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for the control and development of football in Scotland. Members of the SFA include clubs in Scotland, affiliated national associations as well as local associations. It was formed in 1873, making it the second oldest national football association in the world. It is not to be confused with the Scottish Football Union, which is the name that the SRU was known by until the 1920s.
Edited by imho
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26 minutes ago, imho said:
6 hours ago, Ginaro said:

 

I don't know anything about logos but just googled SFA and this is what came up. Is this this the right or wrong logo that the SFA are showing.?

I was referring to Dunbar's facebook post which had the old SFA logo, but I see from the edit history it was replaced by the current one a few hours ago. 🙂

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I assume Dunbar have resolved the issues with the Hallhill people, given that a few months ago there was a post on here from the club airing some grievances over access?

 

 

 

Edited by Burnie_man
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I appreciate this doesn't concern an EoS team, but Bonnyton Thistle are working towards an application for a licence. It's mentioned in an article about them in a season preview magazine which features all the Ayrshire senior and junior clubs. They hope to have the licence by early next year.

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10 minutes ago, RedEd said:

I appreciate this doesn't concern an EoS team, but Bonnyton Thistle are working towards an application for a licence. It's mentioned in an article about them in a season preview magazine which features all the Ayrshire senior and junior clubs. They hope to have the licence by early next year.

I think it was largely cover that they needed from an outsiders perspective on their ground. I think in the Seated Stand thread in the Junior forum a Bonnyton supporting poster showed some interest, although that doesn't mean they're associated with the club's running or if that led anywhere with what they're doing.

Certainly a good thing to see.

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On 31/07/2019 at 11:17, Burnie_man said:

I assume Dunbar have resolved the issues with the Hallhill people, given that a few months ago there was a post on here from the club airing some grievances over access?

 

 

 

Yes - I believe this has been resolved now, with Dunbar players and supporters using the facilities at Hallhill following matches which is great to see.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 29/07/2019 at 22:22, Burnie_man said:

DUNBAR UNITED

SFA ENTRY LEVEL LICENSE
The club can this evening confirm our intention to immediately apply for an Entry Level License to the Scottish Football Association.

Licensing requires that Dunbar United meet specific standards. The standards are presented in the form of criteria under four headings:

• Ground Criteria
• First Team Football Criteria
• Youth Team Football Criteria
• Legal, Administration, Finance and Codes of Practice Criteria

Licensing will help to establish benchmarking information and ensure forward progress continues to be made on and off the pitch. Football within the community will benefit from the adoption of quality management practices. Licensing aims to ensure that we meet and maintain certain standards and that these standards are continuously improved upon over a period of time. Standards that could immediately see Scottish Cup Football being played at New Countess Park, and may ultimately see the club reaching Scottish League status.

The overall objective of licensing is to raise standards within Scottish football, including but not limited to, safety, infrastructure, youth and coaching, medical, corporate governance and general ethical standards.

The benefits of achieving an entry level license transcend beyond the football club and into the wider community. We are delighted to have the full support of New Hallhill Sports Centre as we embark on this process.

We also now call on members of the local community who feel they can support any element of the process, to come forward and join our small committee. We need your help now more than ever to take the club into a new and exciting era.

Looks positive for Dunbar, and also for Dunipace that they will be granted a licence reasonably soon. Also, Dalkeith ?

However, if I correctly understand the "floodlights" licensing rule, their are 8 current SFA member clubs who are at risk of losing their licence before July 2020.  As I understand it regarding the lights requirement.  the current situation for these clubs is :

Burntisland         moving forward, but not sure whether the club will meet the timescale

C S Strollers         floodlights acquired, agreed and being installed

Coldstream         confident that they will meet the deadline, but progress unclear

Girvan                    no news about progress

Golspie                  unlikely to meet the deadline, as previous planning application not pursued/approved,  following objections from neighbours

Vale of Leithen   no news about progress, and if not achieved, the club faces relegation from the Lowland League

Whitehill Welfare    fund raising underway

Wigtown & Bladnoch   no news about progress.

Hopefully all 8 will be successful, but it looks unlikely for some of them.  Anyone got any further information/up dates ?

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

More changes to the club licencing process announced today.

The SFA board will, with immediate effect, only award licences once per year at their annual meeting in May or June.

Any applicant clubs must conform to criteria and be accepted by the licencing board at their February meeting, to be eligible to be awarded in May/June.

So, unless in mistaken:

Any currently unlicensed EoS premier League club (like Bo'ness) will be ineligible for promotion to the LL this year unless the LL waive their 31/03 deadline again or change their playoff rules permanently to note the new date as end June.

Also means that anyone in the process, like we have been since February 2019, who currently meet all the criteria have to wait with some trepidation for the licence update in December, despite meeting all current criteria.

If anything else is added you (and everyone else) have 4-7 weeks to get it done, get re-audited and through the licencing board or you have to wait another 18 months to have your licence awarded, having to go through the same period of uncertainty with everyone else the following year.

I won't give my opinion, just presenting the information to keep people updated.

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47 minutes ago, gaz5 said:

More changes to the club licencing process announced today.

The SFA board will, with immediate effect, only award licences once per year at their annual meeting in May or June.

Any applicant clubs must conform to criteria and be accepted by the licencing board at their February meeting, to be eligible to be awarded in May/June.

So, unless in mistaken:

Any currently unlicensed EoS premier League club (like Bo'ness) will be ineligible for promotion to the LL this year unless the LL waive their 31/03 deadline again or change their playoff rules permanently to note the new date as end June.

Also means that anyone in the process, like we have been since February 2019, who currently meet all the criteria have to wait with some trepidation for the licence update in December, despite meeting all current criteria.

If anything else is added you (and everyone else) have 4-7 weeks to get it done, get re-audited and through the licencing board or you have to wait another 18 months to have your licence awarded, having to go through the same period of uncertainty with everyone else the following year.

I won't give my opinion, just presenting the information to keep people updated.

Interesting.   It would be of benefit to clubs if the SFA announced the new Licence criteria at the AGM as well so that clubs have the maximum possible time to comply, therefore at the June 2020 AGM, the 2021 criteria is announced.

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I think a boundary change is unnecessary, and is unlikely to get support from the relevant Scottish bodies/clubs.
The geography in England is much easier to (re)organise because only Devon, Cornwall and the north east are relatively remote. Even in  the latter area, the pyramid leagues are being realigned in 2020/21, with an extra 'north east' league being created, above the existing  Northern League.  Also, Devon & Cornwall football has been reorganised  'locally' (within its boundaries) for 2019/20. 


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More changes to the club licencing process announced today.

The SFA board will, with immediate effect, only award licences once per year at their annual meeting in May or June.

Any applicant clubs must conform to criteria and be accepted by the licencing board at their February meeting, to be eligible to be awarded in May/June.

So, unless in mistaken:

Any currently unlicensed EoS premier League club (like Bo'ness) will be ineligible for promotion to the LL this year unless the LL waive their 31/03 deadline again or change their playoff rules permanently to note the new date as end June.

Also means that anyone in the process, like we have been since February 2019, who currently meet all the criteria have to wait with some trepidation for the licence update in December, despite meeting all current criteria.

If anything else is added you (and everyone else) have 4-7 weeks to get it done, get re-audited and through the licencing board or you have to wait another 18 months to have your licence awarded, having to go through the same period of uncertainty with everyone else the following year.

I won't give my opinion, just presenting the information to keep people updated.


You could definitely put a cynical view at these changes. Gives too much opportunity for December changes to be made trying to restrict number of successful applications.

Taking it at face value. In theory I don’t mind the once a year idea, but it’s half-baked.

If they’re going down this route the criteria needs posted much earlier, probably end of August to give clubs 6 months to meet any changes.

The licensing board also should have power to offer ‘conditional licences’ for completion of works over the spring that the board can check have been met.

The ongoing licensing process needs to continue so clubs know where they stand in meeting criteria and changes they might need to make.

As mentioned there needs to be changes in tier 5 criteria so that clubs can work towards licensing knowing if they achieve it promotion is possible that season.


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You could definitely put a cynical view at these changes. Gives too much opportunity for December changes to be made trying to restrict number of successful applications.

Taking it at face value. In theory I don’t mind the once a year idea, but it’s half-baked.

If they’re going down this route the criteria needs posted much earlier, probably end of August to give clubs 6 months to meet any changes.

The licensing board also should have power to offer ‘conditional licences’ for completion of works over the spring that the board can check have been met.

The ongoing licensing process needs to continue so clubs know where they stand in meeting criteria and changes they might need to make.

As mentioned there needs to be changes in tier 5 criteria so that clubs can work towards licensing knowing if they achieve it promotion is possible that season.


I tend to agree, making clear that licence awards only happen once a year gives clarity to the process that doesn't exist at the moment. As we saw last year with moving meetings (for good reason) the dubiety in the "when" of the process led to lots of frustration and lots of questions.

We know the AGM will happen every year in May or June, so making it a standing item on the Agenda clarifies the timings for everyone. It should also help the licencing guys, given they are the front line and have to field the timescale question I would expect from every applicant.

So I think long term this is a sensible move, if unfortunately a little detrimental to ourselves as we are caught up as an applicant during the process change.

My concern with it, which Burnie alluded to as well, is that criteria has tended to change in December, as we saw last year. That doesn't give any applicant, or for that matter the licence guys, much time to react to any changes. This was a huge issue last year.

I think Burnie's suggestion is the most pragmatic one, that any changes to the criteria should also be approved at the AGM, so that no one applying for the current year has their application impacted by changing criteria/short turnaround time (they would still have to meet the criteria before next audit, but as members having been compliant initially).

Anyone applying post February licence board meeting would know that they won't be awarded till the following June and have criteria updates coming in May/June to manage, with plenty of time to work with licencing to get the job done.

Hopefully, that is the next step.

Still leaves the Lowland League needing to look at their playoff rules, given they reflect the previous licence process where awards could happen in March and April.

Overall, other than the overlapping dates for criteria change, which is potentially messy but which could easily be resolved by confirming those are also agreed at the AGM, the confirmation of an annual award date feels like a positive move that clarifies the timescales for everyone, so fair play.

Shame it impacts our application, but greater good and all that.
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8 minutes ago, gaz5 said:

Still leaves the Lowland League needing to look at their playoff rules, given they reflect the previous licence process where awards could happen in March and April.

They've taken down the Lowland Pyramid Play-off Rules, so i'm not sure if March 31st still appears on there. But it has disappeared in the requirements for being eligible for promotion. If you look at how long they held out on Bonnyrigg I don't think they'll be restrictive.

Quote

B – MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE
B1 All clubs must, on the Completion Date, be licensed, full members of the Scottish FA. The maximum number of clubs will be sixteen (16).

Completion date is June 30th

Quote

Promotion into the League
B4 The club eligible for promotion into the League from the EoSFL or the SoSFL will be identified as follows: a) If the champion clubs of both the EoSFL and SoSFL meet the criteria for membership of the League, a play-off competition between these clubs (the “Lower Pyramid Playoff Competition”) will decide the eligible club, which will be promoted to the League; b) If only one champion club from the EoSFL or SoSFL meets the criteria, that club becomes the eligible club, which will be promoted to the League; c) If neither the champion club of the EoSFL or the SoSFL meets the criteria for membership there will be no promotion to the League.

 

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Very naughty of the SFA, there are clubs who committed to the current licence process in February who, for reasons out with the clubs control, have had to wait a period of time to get to the sfa board for ratification and beyond an SFA driven licence embargo.... Only to be told (whilst already committed financially to the process) that they now have to wait a longer period of time and may have to add additional aspects that were not part of the process when they applied fully 7 months ago.

The SFA Continue to play a blinder here. Do they want lice sed clubs or is their statement just a rouse to make it sound like they want to make Scottish football at all levels better?

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