With over 37,000 clubs in the country, soccer is undoubtedly the U.K.’s most played sport, especially at youth level, with 53 percent of 11-15 year olds playing the sport at least once a month.
As the level of participation is so large, this brings a host of logistical and also safety issues with which grassroots soccer clubs in the U.K. have to grapple with.
TagPay is a management solution aiming to help with these issues. It is delivered through an app, both on iOS and Android, which is aimed specifically at youth sport teams. Founders Kelston Smith and Nathan Eno, created the solution with Nathan’s experience in running a grassroots soccer club, where the two biggest issues they faced were communication with all stakeholders, and then also payment to ensure the financial health of the club was kept up.
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The solution is broken up into two different experiences. TagPay is used exclusively by players or those associated with them, such as parents while TagPay Coach is used by a team’s management staff, including the coach.
For players and parents, the app is combined with a wristband that players must wear and present to a coach in order to gain access to the training or match. When this check-in is complete, which is done by swiping the wristband by a smartphone with the app, a player’s parent or guardian is notified with the time and date of this registration by SMS text message. Following the end of a session, players are then deregistered. Data collected and stored by TagPay includes players’ personal details, such as medical issues, emergency contact numbers, and parents’ and guardians’ details.
For coaches and management, TagPay is able to track payment for each player’s payments by using a “traffic light system” to show if payments are up to date, due or if a payment has failed. Also, within the app, management can communicate key information, such as venue changes or other issues, with its members through its news feed.
The benefits of such an approach, argue the founders, is that clubs are able to manage data on one system instead of it being siloed across different service providers, while also providing peace of mind to parents regarding their children. They also believe that because logistics and safety are, in effect, automated, this gives coaches and clubs more time to focus on growing their grassroots club and developing its players.
To date, TagPay has been used by number of different football clubs and academies including Arsenal and also the Turnstyles Soccer Academy, which used the solution for a camp in partnership with FC Barcelona.