Club Administrator's Guide to SAFA LFA and Regional Leagues Senior 2026/27

Under the SAFA Competitions Uniform Rules:

• Affiliate to your LFA: every club with a team in the SAFA competitions must be affiliated to the Local Football Association where its home base is, and the SAFA region must be notified. Not complying is misconduct (Rule 4.4).
• Enter on time: submit the prescribed entry and information documents with the entry fee by the deadline, which is 1 August each year unless SAFA states otherwise (Rule 4.1.3). The Sasol Women's League deadline is 31 January.
• Participation is compulsory: every team affiliated to SAFA must take part in all competitions and activities SAFA administers (Rule 4.2).
• One team per league: a club may have teams in several SAFA leagues, but never more than one in the same league (Rule 4.5).
• Officials: only officials named on the team's annual registration or renewal form may represent the team at SAFA hearings or activities (Rule 40.5). Up to five registered officials may sit on the bench.
• Name and franchise: a team can't change its name, or sell its franchise and relocate, without SAFA's approval (Rules 4.3 and 37).
• SAFA serves documents on the fax or email address you give at annual registration, so keep it current (Rule 40.4).

By entering, you agree to the Uniform Rules and that all administrative, disciplinary and refereeing matters are dealt with under them.

Under the SAFA Competitions Uniform Rules:

Ground

• The home team must secure the venue. Failing to do so is misconduct and can cost the match points (Rule 5.5.1).
• Name a home ground and an alternative when affiliating, and register your grounds and pitch dimensions with SAFA before the season. Don't move ground or change pitch size during the season without written consent (Rules 5.5.3-5.5.8).
• Pitches must be 100-120 m long and 68-75 m wide; night matches need at least 200 lux of lighting (Rule 8).
• Provide separate, marked "home" and "visitors" benches with direct pitch access, equidistant from halfway, each seating no more than 12 (Rule 5.5.11).
• If you ask to play at a neutral venue, you pay all costs, including ground rental, security and, beyond 5 km, the away team's extra travel (Rule 5.5.5).

Match day

• Tell the nearest public health institution about your home game so it can be on standby, and where possible have a doctor or physiotherapist present (Rule 5.7).
• Supply a FIFA-approved match ball (Rule 8.5).
• Provide adequate security. If spectators misbehave, the club is presumed not to have provided it, and a bigger crowd than expected is no defence. A team is responsible for its supporters unless it proves the troublemakers weren't its supporters (Rule 24).
• Protect match officials before, during and after the match; failing to do so is misconduct.

Under SAFA Competitions Uniform Rule 5:

• SAFA sets the dates and venues of matches.
• To ask for a fixture change, your request must reach SAFA in writing at least 14 days before the scheduled date (less only in emergencies or where that's impractical).
• Fixtures may only be changed in extreme circumstances, at the discretion of SAFA's CEO or designated officials. Otherwise no fixture may be changed in any way.
• Clubs are told of fixture changes in writing at least 72 hours before the match.
• If 3 or more of your players are picked for a SAFA representative match, you may apply in writing to postpone a fixture within 48 hours of it; it is only postponed with SAFA's written permission (Rule 9).
• Weather postponements and floodlight-failure abandonments are re-fixtured by SAFA.

Failing to fulfil a fixture SAFA has set is misconduct, and a team that doesn't turn up or arrives late forfeits the points. Conceding 3 walkovers in a stream of 10 or more teams, or 2 in a stream of 8 or 9, can end the team's participation.

Under SAFA Competitions Uniform Rule 14:

Registration periods

For each player, submit:

• the registration form from the team's allocated registration book
• an original passport or ID (certified copy of the ID)
• the player's transfer or clearance certificate
• a completed medical report
• three recent colour passport-sized photos
• any contract between the club and the player

Deadlines: forms go in within five days of the player signing, at SAFA's offices during working hours. The card is issued on the fifth working day after submission.

Numbers and fees: the entry fee covers the first 22 players; further players must be paid for before they're processed.

Foreign players: at Regional level and above, no more than three may be registered. At LFA level any number may be registered, but the team then can't be promoted (Rule 12).

Your responsibility: the club must make sure all information is accurate. Submitting false information or fielding an improperly registered player is an offence, and the issue of a card doesn't remove that responsibility.

SAFA Competitions Uniform Rules 17-20 set five dispute processes, each with a fee:

Protest (a team that played in the match):

• About an ineligible opposition player: object in writing on the team sheet before kick-off, handed to the referee with the senior assistant referee present and countersigned by the opposing captain.
• About other breaches: in writing to the referee in the same way, immediately before kick-off or before the final whistle.
• Then lodge the written protest and fee within 48 hours (working days), giving the full facts and the rule broken.

Complaint (anyone in SAFA membership, about any misconduct): in writing with the fee within 7 days of the incident. Sanctions on a complaint are limited, for example to fines of up to R20 000.

Dispute (a club and player over registration, transfer or contract): written notice with the fee to the relevant SAFA official; heard by the Dispute Resolution Committee.

Neither a protest nor a complaint can be made against the referee's decisions in play (a complaint can if it alleges corruption). A protest or complaint that doesn't meet these requirements is dismissed.

Under SAFA Competitions Uniform Rules 21-23:

Before the hearing

• SAFA, and each provincial, regional and local member, appoints a Disciplinary Committee. A panel chair may hear a matter alone.
• Everyone summoned must be told the time and place at least 72 hours before the hearing. The summons sets out the charges and lists the documents relied on.
• Parties prepare indexed and paginated bundles of documents and exchange them beforehand.

At the hearing

• You may have legal or other representation at your own cost, but it mustn't delay the hearing.
• If you were properly summoned and don't attend, the hearing goes ahead without you and you can be suspended until you appear.
• The charge must be proved on a balance of probabilities. Facts in match officials' reports are presumed accurate, though they can be disproved.
• Hearsay is not allowed. TV and video footage may be used but doesn't change match officials' decisions of fact.
• In a protest or complaint, the club that brought it prosecutes its own case.

Possible sanctions (Rule 23.25) include suspensions, fines up to R20 000, deducting league points, ordering a replay or awarding the match, closing a ground, barring the team from next season's competition, and recommending to the Competitions Committee that the team be expelled or suspended (with its results expunged).

Under SAFA Competitions Uniform Rule 25:

1. Lodge the appeal within 72 hours of receiving the written disciplinary decision.
2. Within those 72 hours, lodge all relevant documents, the grounds of appeal and the appeal fee.
3. You must serve the documents on all the other parties.
4. You must make sure the transcript or minutes of the disciplinary hearing are available before the appeal is set down, and you pay for the transcript.

Appeals are heard by SAFA's Appeals Board under the SAFA Statutes.

Appeal fees (Rule 17.1.4)

After the Appeals Board: a dispute with its decision goes to arbitration, submitted to a designated SAFA official within 72 hours of the decision being given in writing. Arbitration fees are R10 000 (Regional and Junior) or R30 000 (Provincial).

Only SAFA or the party charged may appeal a Disciplinary Committee decision. If appeals threaten to seriously disrupt the competition, the Competitions Committee can order that it carries on.

Under SAFA Competitions Uniform Rule 4 (which doesn't apply to the Junior Football Leagues):

• Each stream has a maximum of 16 teams.
• The bottom two teams in each stream are relegated to the league immediately below, except a team just promoted into that stream.
• Two teams from the leagues immediately below in each province, SAFA region and LFA are promoted after the play-offs.
• More than two teams may be relegated from a men's stream if extra teams drop from the National First Division into that province (a knock-on effect).
• Men's Promotional League play-offs are in two streams, Inland and Coastal, and both winners are automatically promoted to the National First Division.
• If a promoted team withdraws before the season, the next best finishing team may be promoted.
• SAFA's Competitions Committee confirms promotions and relegations within 30 days of each competition ending.

Reserve teams (Rule 4.5): a club can't have two teams in the same league. A lower team can't be promoted into a league where the club already has a team (the next best team goes up instead), and if the club's higher team is relegated into that league, the lower team is automatically relegated too.

According to SAFA, the Hollywoodbets Men's Regional League's provincial play-offs send two teams per province (18 in total) up to the SAFA Second Division, the ABC Motsepe League.

Under the SAFA Competitions Uniform Rules:

Friendlies (Rule 36)

• No team affiliated to SAFA, or player registered with SAFA, may play in any match other than official SAFA matches without SAFA's prior written permission.
• Official fixtures won't be postponed for friendlies, and an official fixture can't be turned into a friendly: its result is official and final.

Sponsors (Rules 29 and 35)

• Club sponsor advertising on kit needs written permission from SAFA's Competitions Committee, and must not conflict with the competition or bring SAFA or its sponsors into disrepute. Front-of-shirt sponsors can't be tobacco or alcohol companies. Advertising on shorts or socks also needs SAFA's written approval.
• Teams, officials and players may not contact the competition sponsor directly without the SAFA CEO's prior written permission.

Media (Rules 24 and 38)

• Clubs must include in agreements with officials and players an undertaking to get SAFA's permission before discussing SAFA's policies with the media.
• Statements that bring SAFA, its sponsors or the competitions into disrepute are misconduct. If such a statement is reported, the person has 5 days to confirm or deny it, and a denial must be made by affidavit.