As part of the European Week of Sport (EWOS), Sport Ireland Coaching, in partnership with the Dublin & District Schoolboys/girls League are hosting an ICOACHKIDS Regional Coaching Conference for Directors of Football, Behavioural Officers and Coaches of boys and girls teams in football clubs in the DDSL. This is an amazing opportunity for coaches to hear from renowned speakers in the field of coaching children in sport (speakers to be announced in the near future).

• When:             25^th September
• Time:             7pm-930pm
• Where:            Clayton Hotel Liffey Valley https://maps.app.goo.gl/sNcc4FffgqZwWDT89
• Cost:               €10 (Donated to charity, Barretstown and LauraLynn)
• Book:              https://admin.sportsmanager.ie/sportlomo/registration/event-registration/index/14189

To All Club Secretaries.

Following on from our FSMT (Football Senior Management Team) meeting last night, please see below a number of important issues:

REFEREES:

• All Fixtures will be issued every Sunday at 7pm & should include the allocation for referees to the different games.
• Where our Referee Allocators have not yet allocated a Referee to your games, they will endeavour to source a Referee up until Thursday at 6pm
• After this deadline….unfortunately with not enough Referees… it will not be possible to provide Referees for all games…particularly where a Referee needs to be allocated to just the one game. Therefore, we ask clubs to source their own Referee so the players get to play football. Once you have a Referee sourced, please notify the opposition & the Referee Allocators at referres@ddsl.ie
• Please note as there are so many fixtures, our new Referee allocators will include a ‘Default Time’ for games to be played. However, as most clubs look to change these times due to the huge numbers of teams they have & where they also have the different age groups playing in a number of locations. This is done to ensure all games are played. Therefore, as soon as the fixtures are issued, please advise your opposition if there is a change in time of KO.
• N.B. It is extremely important for all Club Secretaries to contact your Referee once you are allocated a Referee….the earlier the better.  Please ensure the Referee confirms their availability & you confirm the time & exact location to the Referee. Last season many club secretaries did not contact the Referee beforehand to confirm the fixture & this led to a number of games failing to take place.  If you contact the Referee in advance of the game & for some reason, they cannot make it, please contact the Referee Allocators to advise & hopefully source a new Referee between you both.

DDSL FIXTURES: 

• As you are aware the fixtures for the Boys/Girls u16 to u18 begin this weekend with all other ages group fixtures beginning the following weekend i.e. 13^th/14^th Sept.
• Please ensure all your players are registered as players ‘CANNOT’ play if they are not registered.
• Please note that all Divisions are now finalised.
• Please note all fixtures must be played this weekend …unless approval was granted from the relevant Fixture Secretary……otherwise a ‘Fine & Deduction of 3x points will be implemented.
• Please advise your parents/coaches/managers not to contact the DDSL Fixture Secretaries directly with queries/complaints etc. The Fixture Secretary are volunteers & very busy as it is. They will only reply & deal with the Club Secretary.

RESULTS

• Please ensure to forward all results to results@ddsl.ie & please also include the relevant Fixture Secretaries as they can cross check results in the event of a dispute/discrepancy
• Please also forward results for the SSG…particularily the u10’s & u11’s so we can use these for re-grading at Christmas & ensure all teams are in the correct standard Division.

Player Registration Approvals

We have been inundated with calls and emails from Parents who have been told by coaches and clubs to contact the league regarding the approval status of players. All clubs can see the status of a player’s registration on their club portal. Can youplease not direct parents to contact the league.  The league is approving all players and the club as advised also have the option to approve players. Once a player has been approved by the league or club they can be added to Team Panels. All clubs need to advise their players to register in plenty of time to ensure they are approved to be added to Team Panels. As the U16-U18 leagues are the first to kick off these player approvals have been done first. Current approval times are 4-5 days from receipt.

Please advise all your managers/coaches on the information as outlined above.

Good luck to all the clubs playing this weekend & please advise your managers/coaches/parents ‘LET THE PLAYERS PLAY’ & prevent & reduce the huge number of ‘Disciplinary Issues’ we had to deal with last season