ALABAMA SOCCER ASSOCIATION
Registrar’s Manual
GENERAL INFORMATION (note: updates are in Red)
First, I would encourage all of you to try to convince your Club Board to go to “Online” registration. Help them to understand that parents don’t have to pay online to register online. That is a choice for your club. However, being able to pay fees by credit card can be a definite benefit to families. BUT, if parents at least register online, it helps your club to have more accurate information and allows parents to be able to register for many things in the state. It also makes the registrar’s job a lot easier. For more information about using “Online” registration refer to the Affinity Manual and contact Affinity for any questions you may have.
I. REGISTRAR RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Responsibilities given by your organization’s by-laws.
2. To register every player, coach, assistant coach and manager in your organization. Complete and accurate information should be entered on every player and coach. Correct names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers must be entered. If any info needs to be updated and you are unable to do so, please contact ASA with a list of changes to be made and ASA will make the necessary changes.
a. You must verify all player registration information.--THIS INCLUDES NAME AND BIRTH DATE – The name and birth date must match the name and birth date on the player’s birth certificate. (NO NICKNAMES) Verification of a player’s age is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY as the registrar of your organization. All DI and DII birth certificates must be uploaded. These uploaded BC must be “readable”. When a birth certificate is uploaded, the state office will assume that the Club registrar has verified the name and birth date of the player. It is not helpful if at a State Cup or Regional competition, we need to read the information and when opened, it is too small to read. The Club Registrar must verify the BC and if it is not readable, it must be replaced. It is optional for the Club registrar to upload BC for DIII or DIV. If you upload birth certificates for your DIII and DIV, you must be sure those are correct and the player is registered with the name that is on the birth certificate as well. If it must be corrected, you must notify the state office to make the correction.
b. You are responsible for getting International Clearance on all of your players U12 and up who have a foreign birth certificate. Please see instructions on our website, under ADMIN/FORMS. Once the player is cleared you must complete and give the player a certificate (found on our website). You also need to check the box on the player’s page so that we will no he has been cleared.
c. PLAYERS FROM OUT OF STATE: It is the Club Registrar’s responsibility to check for and notify any “out of state” player that they must complete the necessary steps required for them to be registered in this state. You are responsible for helping the player get the proper Interstate Release form completed and sent to their home State Office. Any player from another state must be released by that state and accepted by ASA before being approved on an AL team in any division.
3. You must create teams and place players and administrators on those teams.
4. The Club registrar is not able to register administrators internally.
a. You will notify all coaches and administrators that they must complete their own registration in order to be added to a team. If they don’t have a user name and password, you can create one for them and give them the email address that had been entered for them.
b. The admin must complete the information required, initial the ELA which gives permission to run a background check and upload a copy of his driver’s license. BE SURE that they know they should upload a DL and not a BC (as the site will ask for the BC). The upload must be uploaded as a JPEG.
c. The registrar will verify that his FULL NAME and BIRTH DATE match the information on the Driver’s License before he is added to the team. If it is not correct you should be able to make changes. “The background check will run automatically when you add the administrator to the team roster”. THEREFORE you must verify the name and birth date before adding any administrator to a team.
d. Note: The Club will be charged for any administrator who has a background check run whether he remains on a team or is removed.
5. “SUBMISSION OF REGISTRATION FORM” Prepare and submit with payments to ASA by the deadlines and routinely thereafter, as you register additional players and need additional cards. This form is on our website under ADMIN/FORMS. You must submit team and player “Submission of Registration” information when:
a. Registering teams, coaches and players each season.
b. Adding teams, coaches or players to your organization after you have sent in your organizations initial season’s “Submission of Registration”.
c. Transferring players into your organization, or between competitive level (i.e., Division I and Division II) teams in your organization.
6. Every player (regardless of level of play) and coach, who is placed on a team in your organization, must register. This is a requirement of USYSA and to maintain your organizations affiliation with ASA.
7. Note: Division IV players are not covered by the secondary insurance until they have been entered into Affinity.
Registration documentation processing is as follows:
A. Registration documents for a new affiliated organization will be processed when your affiliation is approved.
B. Registration documents for organizations not in good standing will be processed when your affiliation is approved.
C. Registration documents for re-affiliating organizations in good standings will be processed as received.
7. You are responsible for keeping the “SECURITY” section in Affinity updated with current info on President, Registrar, Treasurer and Director of Coaching. See page 7 of the AFFINITY MANUAL for instructions
REPORTS: Use the Affinity reports to verify the correctness of ASA player and administrator registration fees.
The Club Registrar and/or Club Treasurer are responsible for determining the fees to be paid to the State Office. Affinity has a number of reports that can be used for this. The new report used by the State Office is under: “New Financial Reports” - “Accepted Player Billing Summary Report”. Affinity has the additional report that will include only NEW spring players. At the end of the season ASA will use AFFINITY reports to verify payments that you have submitted on your SUBMISSION OF REGISTRATION. If these figures don’t match, you will be sent a reconciliation statement showing the differences.
II. DIVISION I and DIVISION II REGISTRATION
General Information
1. Every player and coach must be registered at the time he/she first enters your organization for the seasonal year. Affinity will migrate DI and DII teams forward from fall to spring. The parents who use online registration will only go in (for spring) and complete the ORDER to pay for the spring fees for your club. Every Club must configure this process and contact Affinity if you need help with payment and custom registration questions for your club.
2. The yearly player registration fee to ASA is only paid once for a player during the seasonal year. This is paid the first time a player registers with any affiliated organization during a seasonal year. After that, a player may register with, or transfer to any affiliated organization without having to pay an ASA registration fee. It is the Club’s responsibility to keep up with any fee payment on transferred players. Once the player transfer fee is paid, the club will only pay for the player’s new card.
3. The maximum number of players allowed on a roster is 14 for U11 and U12, 18 for U13 and 22 for U14-U19.
4. No double rostered players will be allowed on DI or DII teams. No DIII player can be double rostered on any DI or DII team. They can be CLUB PASSED.
Note: CLUB PASS CHANGES:
A. May Club pass an unlimited number of players up (i.e. DIII player to DI or DII team or DII player to DI team).
B. No players may be club passed down (i.e. DI player to DII team).
C. There is a lateral club pass limit of 3 players (i.e. 3 DI players to another DI team or 3 DII players to another DII team).
5. Registration Process - Please see the Affinity Manual on the Website for instructions in setting up a club, registering players and creating teams. It is available when you first log in to Affinity on the Affinity front page.
6. The Club registrar creates the teams, uploads Birth Certificates (be sure it matches the registration information) for every player and pictures if desired. You need to verify that the birth certificate is readable once it has been uploaded. If you upload pictures, they need to be replaced at least every 2 years, preferably every year. You may have parents or managers upload the pictures but the CLUB REGISTRAR needs to upload the Birth Certificate to be sure it is readable and the name and birth date are correct.
7. For DI and DII teams, the registrar is responsible for maintaining copies of the player/parent commitment form. The registrar can only initial the ELA in Affinity if he/she has a copy of the commitment form signed by the player and his parents.
8. For a new coach, coaching certification information should be turned in to the Club registrar by the coach. If the coach is unable to find his/her certification from a course taken through ASA, he/she will have to give you the license level and approximate date and the city where the course was taken, in order for ASA to search for his information.
9. Once the team has been created and completed, the registrar should open the Team Roster page to verify that the team is in order and that the coaches have no “RED” circles next to their name, to be sure that their license is appropriate. If necessary, the background check will be run by ASA after the team is sent to the “activation queue”. Verify that the symbol for the birth certificate shows that it has been uploaded. Be sure all players are marked “accepted” and “age legal”. Be sure that the jersey number info has been entered on DI and DII players. NOTE: For players registered through an application or after a team is activated, you can go to that player’s record and enter that player’s home and away jersey. The teams are then sent to the Approval Queue by going to the “Team Details” tab that is found on left on the open team information. You must click on the drop down under Primary League Registrar and choose “TEAM ACTIVATION”. Then on the drop down below choose “MARTHA DISKO”. You then click update. Once that player has been moved up to the team, by ASA, the jersey information will automatically feed over to the team roster within 24 hours. Once approved and activated. The team will be released back to the Club Registrar in order for the registrar to print the cards and rosters.
III. DIVISION III and DIVISION IV REGISTRATION
General Information
1. A player may register by online registration (if allowed by the club) or the registrar must register the player internally. The registrar should look up the player under player look up (all seasons) to see if the player has played with their club before. Otherwise, you must begin entering the parent info and watch for it to pull up in the system, if the player played elsewhere and is already in the system. If you register a player who is already in the system, the registration will probably be cancelled by Affinity. If you go to look up a player you have registered and can’t find him, look in the “cancelled applications”. If he has been cancelled that record will direct you to the “active” account.
2. Each administrator/coach must be registered at the time he/she first enters your organization for the seasonal year. You must also re-register them for each subsequent playing season they are in your organization. Beginning Fall 2011, each coach is required to register him/herself, finding his/her record in Affinity and creating the new application. He/she will upload their Driver’s License and initial the ELA. The Registrar can’t complete registration on an Admin internally. If for any reason the DL uploaded by the coach/admin is not readable. The registrar will have to delete it and get a copy and upload, or the registration can be cancelled completely. The coach/admin will not have access to see the DL and reload anything once he is registered for that season. If the registration is cancelled, the coach can go back in and register and re-upload his DL and picture (if needed).
3. The yearly player registration fee is only paid once for a player during the seasonal year. This is paid the first time a player registers with any affiliated organization during a seasonal year. After that, a player may register with any affiliated organization without having to pay an ASA registration fee. It is up to the Club Registrar to monitor this.
4. DIII players may be added to “pool teams” with up to 35 players or they may be placed on individual smaller teams. The Team roster can be printed with all of the Pool players listed and cross through those not playing or the Club Registrar will have to ability to move these players around from team to team as long as they meet the age group requirement. The Club Registrar will be able to activate and deactivate all DIII teams without having to send them to the State Office. (more details of how this will work with Leagues will be added once that is determined)