Monitoring
Throughout the course of the season every Charter Standard club will receive at least one monitoring visit. These visits will be conducted by members of the Norfolk FA Football Development Team and Development Committee.
The visits are not designed to catch out clubs or individuals, they are merely to help maintain and indeed where possible to help raise the standards across the county.
All visits and observations are collated on the County FA Monitoring database and reviewed regularly. The team are now looking to develop and raise the standards within our clubs and this monitoring process is designed to support and not hinder this development, indeed we need the Award to be worth having rather than easily achieved and forgotten.
Discipline
Norfolk County FA believe that, with the implementation of The FA’s Respect programme and our four year strategy's (4-4-3) aim of raising standards, the discipline procedure needs to be developed further. We have therefore implemented a new three stage discipline process (in effect from July 2009).
How it works
Each stage depends on how many charges a club gets and also the amount of discipline points they accumulate over the course of a season. For a breakdown of discipline offences and the points they incur, please refer to the discipline section of the Norfolk County FA Handbook. The number of points allowed for each stage, is related to the number of teams that each club possesses. Recommended Points Allowance per Club per Season:
No. of teams 1 2 3 4 5 each extra team
Stage One 25 48 69 88 105 20
Stage Two 50 96 138 176 210 40
Stage Three 75 144 207 264 315 60
The Process
Stage 1
Clubs will be called in front of a Charter Standard Working party on passing the points as detailed above or on being found guilty of two club charges. At this stage the club will be asked what they have done to improve discipline. Norfolk FA will support the club to develop an action plan to improve discipline.
Stage 2
Clubs will be called in front of a Charter Standard Working Party on passing the points as detailed above or on being found guilty of four club charges. At this stage the Charter Standard Working Party can suspend the club's Charter Standard status for between 3-12 months. Norfolk FA will provide the club with an action plan and review dates.
Stage 3
Stage 3 is reached when a club achieves the points as detailed above or when they have been found guilty of six club charges. When this stage is reached the club will automatically lose their Charter Standard status and would not be able to re-apply for at least 12 months.
The Three Step System
The three step system is in place for the hopefully infrequent situation when a club falls short of the minimum criteria set by the FA, breach of Codes of Conduct or discipline issues. All discrepancies will be looked at separately as mistakes within busy club situations are common, however for persistent or regular cases the three step system can and will be introduced.
Step One
All cases will receive a standardised Step One letter. Clubs will be informed in writing of the situation and will be asked to conduct an ‘in-house’ investigation as to why the incident occurred. Following the investigation clubs will feed back to the County FA what action (if any) has been taken. Support will be offered where necessary.
Step Two
If the Step One letter is ignored or things persist, a second letter outlining the appropriate action with a deadline date will be issued.
Step Three
If cases are judged to be serious enough or a club fails to comply with the Step Two letter, the Norfolk County FA Charter Standard Working Party will convene and if deemed appropriate, the Award may be suspended or removed.
To a volunteer workforce this system may seem harsh but the last thing we want is for all the hard work and determination by the club to be taken for granted. Remember, the Norfolk FA Development Team is on hand to offer advice and support.