Spring Soccer

Passing back to the goalkeeper is discourage. Given the ages of the players we will not to always enforce this. It is left to referee if they believe it is a tactical action or an oversight.
Pre-printed match cards with names are next to the field, the only admin is to put a tick next to your child's name
Results will be recorded by the referee.
Parents can take it in turn to manage player interchange or appoint one person.
Opposition players should be 3 metres back from a kick in and free kick, there is no distance requirements for a goalie throw.
Goalie/Goal Kicks
-The goalie must always throw the ball ball once it is in his hands, whether it is because it is a goal kick or he has caught the ball protecting the goal. There are no goal kicks.
-When thrown, the ball cannot pass over the halfway line on the full
-Must be touched by another player before touched by the goalie again
Opposition should stand back 3 metres from the ball for kick-offs, corners etc
There is no distance requirement for goalie (as the ball is not stationary on the ground), although a player cannot interfere with the throw so in practice this most often means about an arm's length.

NB Contact with the referee. Recently, the rules of football were changed so that contact with a referee resulted in a drop ball. International Futsal rules were changed but not in the same way, they have a drop ball only in some circumstances "if x then y" and it does not seem Australian Futsal have changed their rules. To keep it simple, we will keep the old rule that if the ball comes in contact with something that is "natural to the field when play is underway", play on. Natural to the field is a goal post, a puddle, a bird that happens to land, a stick, a corner post, a boot that has come loose and the referee. It does not include human intervention eg a spectator, their pet or other human intervention.

LATE ARRIVAL
The purpose of Spring Soccer is the game not the competition. Should a team fail to arrive or forfeit we will form a composite team of players from games just finished. This ensure your team gets a game. With games only lasting 28 minutes, we need to act quickly to get replacements so if your team is 5 minutes late it will be replaced. GAMES CANNOT RUN PAST ALLOTTED TIME as it delays all games following.

Draw
The draw will be published on the Spring Soccer web site.

Referees
On the ground we will have a referee for each field plus a ground controller.
Should a regular referee call in sick, a replacement will be arranged.
Should there be a late absence, the Ground Controller will act as referee.
Two late/absences may require a parent to act until a replacement can arrive. (our experience is this occurs 1 in 300 games).
Our referees are impartial and imperfect. Almost all are under 18. If you have a problem see the grounds controller we take a strong view of adults bullying children.

Futsal Balls
Footballs have several characteristics including size, weight and construction. Most players who played winter football will have used either a size 3 or size 4 ball (this refers to the diameter of the ball). We use a size 4 ball because, in summer, grass grows much quicker and you will find we are often playing on much longer grass than winter and the larger diameter means the ball rolls better in longer grass so passing between players is effective.

We use Futsal balls rather than standard footballs. Futsal balls have a layer of padding between the bladder and the outer skin. This makes the ball slightly heavier than a standard size ball. The padding is designed to make the ball softer than a standard ball and so bounce less, the padding absorbing part of the energy of any impact. We believe the padding has two benefits, (1) less bounce means the ball is less likely to bounce out and (2)the padding provides some level of player protection much like goalie gloves or shin pads.

Uniforms/Strip
Teams need to have the same coloured top. This could be anything from $5 T-shirts to school sports uniforms or professional jerseys. Bibs will be available at the grounds. These bibs can be used if there are two teams with similar colours or if the team has not decided on a colour. No numbers required.

Replacement Players-
We play from the weakest/youngest teams through to the older ages over the afternoon.
Any player from an earlier game (or scheduled for the same timeslot) can fill in for a team. This is like a player from the "C" team playing up and filling in for the "A" team.
A player from a game with a later kick-off is playing in a stronger division. This is like an "A" player helping out the "C" team. This is OK provided the opponent and referee are informed as it will mean the game goes ahead rather than the players missing a game but in will mean the result is recorded as a forfeit. It allows the referee to address any age/size disparity eg "player can only play in goal and only use his feet."