How to organise a junior football tournament fundraiser

Start with a clear goal and a realistic format

Before you book a single pitch, decide exactly what your tournament is for. "Raise money" is too vague to plan around. A club raising £2,000 towards new goalposts needs a different event from one hoping for £10,000 for a 3G pitch. Set a target, then work backwards.

The format drives everything else. A six-a-side festival for under-8s to under-10s is far easier to run than eleven-a-side across multiple age groups, because you need fewer pitches, fewer referees and less time between matches. Small-sided games also keep more players involved at once, which means more parents on site buying tea and cake.

As a rough guide, a well-run small-sided tournament for 24 teams can be delivered by 20 to 30 volunteers across a single day. If your committee has fewer than a dozen reliable helpers, scale down rather than spread yourself thin.

Sort the pitches, parking and permissions

Pitch capacity is the most common bottleneck. Count how many games you can realistically run on each surface, allowing a ten-minute turnaround between matches for teams to clear and the next pair to warm up. If you have four pitches and each hosts eight matches, that is 32 fixtures, which comfortably covers a 24-team competition with group stages and finals.

Check with your local council or landowner before you advertise the date. If you are using school fields or council-owned recreation grounds, you will usually need written permission and possibly public liability cover named for the event. Your county FA can advise on sanctioning, and most tournaments need it for insurance to be valid.

• Mark pitches clearly with cones or paint, and label each one with a letter.
• Plan a one-way traffic system and a dedicated drop-off point to avoid bottlenecks at 9am.
• Arrange overflow parking at a nearby business or community centre and ask them in advance.
• Rope off spectator areas so parents are not standing on the touchline where players are running.

Confirm the referee situation early. Volunteer referees from within the club are fine, but book them before you publish the fixture list, and give each one a printed schedule with times and pitch numbers.

Refreshments that actually make money

The catering tent is often the single biggest earner, so treat it like a proper operation rather than a trestle table with a few flapjacks. Plan for roughly one hot drink and one food item per spectator. For 300 attendees, that means around 300 hot drinks and 300 portions of food.

Keep the menu short. Burgers, hot dogs, bacon rolls, chips and a vegetarian option cover almost everyone. Add cake, crisps and cold drinks at a separate table so the queue for hot food keeps moving. If you can borrow a second urn and a second till, do it — two short queues beat one long one every time.

• Buy in bulk from a cash and carry and keep receipts for the club treasurer.
• Set prices in round numbers to speed up service and reduce change handling.
• Put a volunteer on the till with a float, and reconcile the takings at the end of the day.
• Offer a family deal — two hot drinks and two portions for a set price — which lifts average spend.
• Have a water station for players, free of charge, near the pitch marshals.

Remember allergen information. Anyone serving food should know what is in it, and a simple printed sheet listing the main allergens for each item keeps you on the right side of food safety rules.

Safety checks and safeguarding on the day

A junior tournament is a public event with children present, so safeguarding and first aid come first. Appoint a named welfare officer for the day, separate from the tournament director, whose only job is to handle concerns and record them. Every volunteer should know who that person is and where they will be standing.

Book a qualified first aider and confirm they are bringing a kit, a ice packs, and a way to contact emergency services. Give the address and a what3words location to the ambulance service in advance if the ground is tricky to find. Have a printed list of the nearest A&E departments.

• Check that every team has provided a signed consent form and emergency contact details.
• Insist on shin pads for all players, no exceptions, and check boots before kick-off.
• Brief pitch marshals on the procedure for injuries, lost children and bad weather.
• Keep a charged phone and a loudspeaker at the control desk for announcements.
• Have a written plan for lightning or extreme heat — usually a suspended play and shelter instruction.

Risk assessments do not need to be lengthy. One page per area — pitches, car park, catering, spectator zones — is enough, as long as you genuinely walk the site and note what you find.

Recruiting volunteers and keeping them happy

Ask for volunteers at least six weeks out, and give every person a specific role with a start and finish time. "Help out on the day" produces confusion; "run the drinks table from 9am to 12pm" produces a filled slot. Split the day into shifts so nobody is stuck in a burger van for eight hours.

Feed your volunteers and give them a free hot drink. It sounds trivial, but it is the difference between people coming back next year and people going quiet when you ask again.

Counting the money and saying thank you

Tally the takings the same day and announce a rough total at the presentation if you can — it gives everyone a lift. Add up entry fees, refreshments, programme sales and any raffle, then subtract pitch hire, food costs, referee payments, printing and first aid cover. Keep a simple spreadsheet and share the final figure with the committee.

Within a week, thank every team, referee, sponsor and volunteer by email or on your club's social media. Note what went well and what to change, while it is fresh. That one page of notes is the most valuable thing you will produce, because next year's tournament will be easier, bigger and raise more for the players who make it all worthwhile.