Let’s keep football 100% positive

Let’s keep grassroots football 100% positive – that’s the message from our new campaign which asks parents, spectators, player and coaches to keep their comments encouraging and upbeat.

Hot on the heels of our recent action on referee abuse, we’re now launching a new season long campaign to encourage positivity – both on the pitch and on the sidelines.

Called ‘100% positive’, it gets underway this weekend to co-incide with The FA’s National Safeguarding Weekend.

We’ll be issuing over 12,000 ‘100% positive’ stickers to every club, and we’ll ask players and coaches to wear them on the pitch over the weekend. We’ll also have posters for every club to display.

On Saturday 20 November, our Northumberland FA U18 representative side will be playing a home fixture against Cheshire FA. Both teams will be wearing 100% positive T shirts to warm up in – demonstrating their commitment to the issue.

Every month, we’ll be rewarding examples of positive behaviour. This weekend we’ve got a special prize of two pairs of tickets to the England Lionesses fixture v Austria at the Stadium of Light on Saturday 27 November.

Please forward any good examples to us using the link here: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/b1cc4e202f474a8e9dd721cd8381a613

Northumberland FA’s Executive Officer, Andrew Rose-Cook, said: “Giving players and referees support during matches is vitally important and directly impacts on their enjoyment of the game Let's make sure we keep all our comments positive and encouraging - to give young players and referees a great grassroots experience.”