Hi all,

Following from the announcement by the FA on Saturday that we could return to competitive football - we have been busy behind the scenes working out how we could achieve this whilst ensuring the welfare of everyone involved is taken into consideration.

Firstly, we have appointed Lee as our new Covid19 Compliance officer, who is responsible for our COVD19 plan. As Well as all the other roles he does within the club - Lee is now also responsible for the continual monitoring of training sessions and matches, ensuring that we are complying with the stringent guidelines outlined by the FA and the Government.

I have attached our new guidelines for returning to competitive football - please can you read these thoroughly as there are many big changes to the way we will be required to run sessions to ensure that we are complying with guidelines given to us. There will also be a copy of the guidelines on our website and everyone will receive one via email along with a new waiver that is required to be completed and returned back to us.

Another big change that is required is that all players and spectators must complete an at home risk assessment before travelling to training and matches. We will post this on the Puma page and on our website. We do not require a copy of this - as arriving pitch side is your confirmation that this has been completed. It's very important to complete this check as if you do have symptoms it prevents you attending training and possibly infecting others.

Training will be slower starting as there are more checks and paperwork the club officials must complete, along with the sanitising of the equipment - so please bear with us. If you are able to spare your time, now more than ever it would be gratefully appreciated. As stated in the guidelines all players should enter the pitch and go to a designated cone at the start of the training. Players should not kick a ball around or play on the field until they have had their temperature checked. This prevents mixing with others if symptoms are present and helps prevent false high temperature readings.

All spectators will be required to have their temperature read and complete a self assessment if they are planning on standing pitch side. We really appreciate all your cooperation with this and will try and get all the required checks done as quickly as possible.

We are so happy that we are able to return back to competitive football again, but we soon realised that there were lots of extra necessary steps we had to put in place to comply with the Government and FA guidelines. We are also fully supporting the NHS trace and trace system in an attempt to avoid any cluster outbreaks.

Whilst some of our teams are eager to begin competitive training, not all teams will be doing so at the moment. It is right to go at a pace that suits our club officials and their players and there is no pressure on anyone to begin competitive football training.

As always, if you have any concerns or questions please feel free to get in touch either via the facebook page or email: welfare.puma@outlook.com

Let's get back to the game that we love, whilst making sure we all stay safe!

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