Move More GIRLS ONLY Football League – Cheltenham and Tewkesbury District

Venues: Various school sites.

Year: 5 and 6 Girls

Fixtures will be organised by teachers to take place at school sites after school.

The duration in which the complete your group phase games will span both autumn and spring terms with a finals event happening just after the Easter break.

Rules:

1. Matches are eight-a-side and 20 mins each way
   2. Roll on/off subs
   3. Home team to supply ref and match balls (size four)
   4. No off-sides
   5. All free kicks are direct
   6. Shin pads must be worn
   7. Win=3pts, draw=2pts and loss=1pt

If teams finish with the same points at any stage, overall goal difference and then goals scored will be used to separate them. If these are identical, the aggregate score in the matches between the two teams

The main differences from the traditional district football league include the below:

• No separate small and large school groups. This would be the long term aim but due to sign up this has not been possible.
• There will not be a halfway point where groups are rearranged inline with autumn term results.
• This halfway point usually puts pressure on teachers to complete fixtures within the autumn term and then also results in some teams not progressing to an additional spring term group phase stage. This would go against the nature of this Girls league which aims to provide as much extra playing time as is possible.
• KEY RULE If the score line margin becomes 5 plus goals to one respective team. The team at this deficit will be able to add two extra players to the field of play thus creating a 10 vs 8 in their favour. Once the score line is reduced back to a 2 goal margin the team who were able to add the two extra players will then need to immediately reduce their on field playing team back to 8 players at that moment in time thus re-establishing an 8v8 match.
• This will ensure the key outcome of this league is more readily achieved with girls enjoying the experience and continuing their participation and love for the game.

Format:

• Three groups of 5 teams.
• Play each team in your group once.
• Please be flexible in trying to play your fixtures as evenly as possible whereby playing fixtures at home and away.
• Please play all your group phase fixtures by Easter Half term.  
• This will then allow the top teams from groups A, B, C to get themselves organised to play in the finals event due to happen soon after the Easter break.
• The no heading rule will be implemented. To ensure player welfare and mitigate against potential health risks linked to heading the ball. A number of local youth leagues have introduced this rule also.

What is a deliberate header?

A deliberate header / heading will usually involve a player moving their head and / or body:

• Towards the ball and / or
• Into the path of the ball When judging if a header is ‘deliberate’, account should be taken of whether the player had the time / opportunity to avoid the ball.

This will be influenced by:

• The speed of the ball
• The distance between the ball and the player when it is played by another player or rebounds from the goalpost or crossbar etc.

Law Changes 

Deliberately heading the ball is an offence punishable by an indirect free-kick. The indirect free-kick is taken at the point where the ball was deliberately headed.

• Where a player of the defending team deliberately heads the ball in their own penalty area, the indirect free-kick is taken from the penalty mark

Deliberately heading the ball is not a cautionable (yellow card) or sending off (red card) offence, unless it:

• Stops or interferes with a promising attack (yellow card) • Denies the opposing team a goal or obvious goal-scoring opportunity (red card)
• Occurs often enough to be considered ‘persistent misconduct’ (yellow card)