Keeping players safe

Safeguarding and online safety

Effective 7 October 2026

If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. If you're worried about a child in football, speak to your club welfare officer, or contact the FA safeguarding team or the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000.

How Touchline Studio is designed

Many grassroots players are under 18, so the service is built to share coaching, not people:

• No player accounts. Players and parents open a link. For team sheets, coaches add first names or nicknames and shirt numbers only, nothing else.
• Team sheets protect availability. Player pages show who is starting and who is a substitute. Who isn't available is only seen by coaches, and there's no field for reasons such as injury or family matters.
• No messaging. Players can't message coaches or each other through Touchline Studio, and coaches can't message individual players.
• No photos or uploads of players.
• No tracking. Player pages set no cookies and don't record who opened them, only a simple view count.
• Coaches are adults. Coach accounts are for people aged 18 and over who have agreed to our Terms.
• Hidden from search engines. Player pages ask search engines not to list them, and each link is a random code that's hard to guess.

Guidance for coaches

• On team sheets and posts, use first names, nicknames or squad numbers only. If two players share a name, use an initial or a nickname rather than a surname. Never post surnames, phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, schools, medical or injury details, or photos.
• Share player links in your team's group chat or by email, and for players under 18, make sure parents or carers get them too, in line with the FA's guidance on digital communication with children.
• Keep messages to players about football: professional, positive and inclusive.
• Don't invite private one-to-one contact with players under 18.
• Only invite assistant coaches who your club has approved and who hold the checks your league requires, such as a DBS check and FA Safeguarding Children training.
• When a player leaves the squad, start a new week so old links stop being current, and delete pages you no longer need.

Reporting a concern

Every player page has a Report a concern link at the bottom. Use it if a page shows personal information, anything inappropriate, or anything that worries you. You don't need an account.

When we receive a report we:

1. look at it as soon as we can, and always within 2 working days;
2. take the page down straight away if it may put a child at risk, before contacting the coach;
3. tell the coach what was removed and why, unless doing so could put a child at risk;
4. pass information to the police, the local authority designated officer or the FA where a child may be at risk of harm;
5. keep a confidential record of the report and what we did.

Our named person for safeguarding and online safety is Jonathan Keefe, contactable at admin@keefecodes.com.

Our responsibilities and yours

Touchline Studio is a planning tool. Clubs and coaches remain responsible for safeguarding in their teams and must follow their club's safeguarding policy and the FA's rules. We review this page at least once a year and whenever the service changes.