Choosing software for a youth football academy

“Academy software” covers very different tools. Some are built to take bookings and collect fees. Some are built to run teams and fixtures. Some are built to record how players develop. A few try to do everything.

Write down the two or three jobs that cost your coaches the most time today, and judge every option against those first. A tool that does your most painful job well beats one that does twenty jobs adequately.

Any system holding children’s information or carrying messages needs clear answers here.

• Can a coach message a child directly? For under 18s the answer should be no: messages should go to parents or guardians.
• Are messages between coaches and families kept, so the club can check them if a concern is raised?
• Can the club record safeguarding checks, such as DBS in England, and see when they expire?
• Can you control which coaches see which players, so a coach only sees the teams they work with?

Your club stays responsible for the children’s data you hold, whichever supplier you use. The supplier processes it for you. So ask:

• Where is the data stored, and will they sign a data processing agreement?
• Can parents see their own child’s record, and give or withdraw consent for things like photos and sharing?
• Can you export everything, in a usable format, whenever you like and without a fee?
• What happens to the data if you leave, or if the supplier closes?

Most grassroots and independent academy coaching is done by busy people on a phone at the side of a pitch. Software that needs a laptop and a training session will not get used.

• Can a coach take the register and record match events on a phone in a minute or two?
• Does it keep working when the signal drops at the ground, and catch up when it returns?
• Is it readable outside, with big enough text and buttons for cold hands?

Parents are the other half of any academy. Check what they get: whether they can see their child’s progress, reply to the club, and say whether their child is available, and whether any of that costs them extra.

Prices are quoted per club, per team, per player or per parent, which makes them hard to compare. Work out the cost for your actual numbers, including what it would cost in two years if you grow, and check what happens to the price when you add teams.

• Which two or three jobs is it genuinely best at?
• Can coaches message children directly, and are coach to family messages kept?
• Will you sign a data processing agreement, and where is our data stored?
• Can we export everything, at any time, at no cost?
• Does the mobile app work without signal?
• What do parents see, and do they pay anything?
• What will this cost us at our size, and at twice our size?
• Can we try it with one team before moving the whole academy?

Pitchward is built for player development and safeguarding: a four-corner development record for each player, logged coach to parent messaging with no coach to child messages, consent the family controls, registers and match events that work offline on a phone, and a full export whenever you want it.

It does not take class bookings or collect fees from parents. If those are your main jobs, a booking tool is the better fit, and plenty of academies use one alongside a development tool.