Player's Guide to England Football Walking Football All ages 2025

No. The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025) say walking football is a non-contact version of the game, and players should take particular care to avoid accidental contact from behind or alongside opponents, where their awareness is reduced.

Every foul is punished with an indirect free kick to the other team (there are no direct free kicks). It's a foul if, in the referee's opinion, you do any of these carelessly, recklessly or with excessive force:

• charge an opponent
• jump at an opponent
• kick or try to kick an opponent
• push
• strike or try to strike (including a head-butt)
• tackle or challenge
• trip or try to trip

Serious foul play and violent conduct are red-card offences.

No. Under Law 12 of The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025), each of these gives the other team an indirect free kick:

• heading the ball
• sliding to play the ball when an opponent is playing or trying to play it (a sliding tackle)
• playing the ball while on the floor

Other offences that also give an indirect free kick include:

• holding an opponent
• deliberately handling the ball, or handling it when your hand or arm has made your body unnaturally bigger
• scoring directly from your hand or arm, even accidentally
• playing in a dangerous manner
• impeding an opponent without contact
• preventing the goalkeeper from releasing the ball
• throwing or kicking an object at the ball, an opponent or an official
• where there are barriers, holding the barrier to shield the ball (holding it to keep your balance is allowed)

Not without penalty. Under The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025), the penalty area (a 6m-radius semicircle in front of each goal) is for the goalkeeper:

• An attacker entering the opponents' penalty area: the defending team gets a goal clearance.
• A defender deliberately entering their own penalty area: a penalty kick to the opponents.

A penalty kick is awarded when:

• a defender deliberately enters their own penalty area
• the goalkeeper deliberately leaves their own penalty area
• the goalkeeper commits a sending-off offence in their penalty area
• a player denies a goal or obvious goal-scoring opportunity by handball (except the goalkeeper in their own area)
• a player denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards goal by an offence punishable by a free kick
• the opposing team commits its fourth "not walking" offence

Taking it: the penalty mark is 6.5m from the goal. The goalkeeper stays on the goal line until the ball is kicked; everyone else stays at least 3m away, behind or to the side of the mark and outside the area. The kicker starts with both feet on the ground no more than 2m from the ball and must kick it forward. Feinting once the run-up is complete earns the kicker a blue card.

In walking football, offences that would normally be a yellow card are punished with a blue card and a timed suspension (sin bin), under Law 12 of The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025).

Sin bin length: between 2 and 5 minutes. The competition sets the exact length before matches.

Blue card offences:

• C1 unsporting behaviour
• C2 dissent by word or action
• C3 persistent offending (other than not walking, which has its own team count)
• C4 delaying the restart (for example faking a kick-in, kicking the ball away, or taking a kick-in from the wrong place to force a retake)
• C5 not keeping the required distance at a restart
• C6 entering or re-entering without permission, or a substitution offence
• C7 deliberately leaving the pitch without permission
• C8 denying a goal or obvious goal-scoring opportunity by handball (also a penalty)
• C9 denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a foul that isn't reckless or excessive (also a penalty)

In the sin bin: you leave the pitch and stay in your team's sin bin area (or where the referee can see you, next to your team's substitutes) until the referee or match official tells you your time is up. Then you rejoin, through the barrier opening if there are barriers.

A second blue card in the same match means a red card.

Under Law 12 of The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025), you are sent off (red card) for:

• S1 serious foul play
• S2 violent conduct
• S3 spitting at or biting someone
• S4 using offensive, insulting or abusive language
• S5 receiving a second blue (or yellow) card in the same match

A player who is sent off can't take any further part in the match and can't sit on the substitutes' bench. If play was stopped only to send a player off, it restarts with an indirect free kick to the other team where the offence happened (3m from the penalty area line if it was in the penalty area).

In a venue where sin-binned players can't wait out of play but in the referee's view (such as an enclosed sports hall), the referee uses yellow cards instead of blue cards and everyone stays on the pitch; two yellow cards still mean a red card.

Under The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025), opponents must be at least 3 metres from the ball at every restart (kick-off, free kick, kick-in, corner and dropped ball).

Free kicks

• All free kicks are indirect, so the ball must touch another player before a goal can be scored.
• Taken from where the offence happened, except that a free kick to the attacking team for an offence in the penalty area is taken 3m from the penalty area line, at the nearest point.
• Deliberately playing an indirect free kick against an opponent to try to score is unsporting behaviour (blue card).

Kick-ins and roll-ins (instead of throw-ins)

• Given to the other team when the ball crosses the touchline, or when a goalkeeper's save or block sends it above the height limit.
• Taken from the touchline as a kick, or as a roll using an underarm action.
• You can't score directly from one, or touch the ball again before another player does.

Corners

• The ball is placed in the corner arc and kicked by an attacker. You can score directly from a corner.

With barriers round the pitch there are no kick-ins or corners: when the ball leaves the playing area, the goalkeeper whose half it went out in restarts with a goal clearance. Barriers are optional, and playing without them is recommended as safer.

Under The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025):

• Walking: the goalkeeper must walk like everyone else, except while actually making a save (for example diving or jumping with both feet off the ground).
• Staying in the area: deliberately leaving their own penalty area gives away a penalty kick.
• Six seconds: an indirect free kick is given if the goalkeeper handles or controls the ball (with hands or feet) in the penalty area for more than six seconds, or lets the ball sit still in the area untouched for more than six seconds.
• Back passes: the goalkeeper can pick up the ball from a team-mate in open play, but not if it comes straight back from the team-mate they have just passed to without touching anyone else.
• Height: if the goalkeeper puts the ball above the height limit from inside the area, it's an indirect free kick 3m from the penalty area line. A save or block that goes over the limit gives the other team a kick-in or roll-in instead.
• Goal clearances: thrown underarm or kicked from a stationary ball, and must go beyond the penalty area or be retaken.
• Scoring: a goalkeeper can't score (except in kicks from the penalty mark). If they put the ball into the opponents' goal, play restarts with a goal clearance.

Under The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025):

• Substitutions are unlimited, and a substituted player can come back on. They are normally made when play is stopped; the player coming off leaves by the nearest boundary before the substitute enters.
• Match length: two to four equal periods of between 5 and 30 minutes each, with no more than 5 minutes between periods (competitions can play it straight through without a break).
• Goals: 3-5m wide and 1.2-2m high.
• No offside.
• A match shouldn't count if a team is permanently reduced (by sendings-off or players unable to continue) by more than two players in 5- or 6-a-side, or more than three in 7-a-side.

Under Law 4 of The FA's Walking Football Laws (February 2025), you must wear:

• a shirt with sleeves
• shorts or tracksuit trousers
• socks
• shin pads, made of suitable material and covered by your socks
• footwear suited to the surface

Goalkeepers wear colours that stand out from the other players and the referee.

Jewellery (necklaces, bracelets, earrings, leather or rubber bands and so on) is forbidden and must be removed. The only exception is a plain wedding band that can't physically be removed, which may be covered. A more intricate band with stones or sharp edges must be fully covered; tape, gloves or silicone ring guards are recommended.

Soft, lightweight padded protection (headgear, face masks, knee and arm protectors), goalkeepers' caps and sports spectacles are allowed.

If your kit is wrong, the referee sends you off the pitch to fix it, and you can only come back after the referee (or a second official) has checked it.

Age: The FA's Laws of Walking Football don't set any age limit. England Football describes walking football as for all ages, abilities and fitness levels. Any age categories are set by the competition or session organiser.

Which laws: This guide follows The FA's Walking Football Laws of the Game, revised February 2025. The FA uses them in its own walking football competitions and recommends that all organisers adopt them. Unless they say otherwise, the IFAB Laws of the Game apply.

The Walking Football Association (WFA) has also published its own laws. In August 2026 The FA and the WFA announced a partnership under which The FA is the governing body for walking football in England, and a single unified set of laws will be brought in from 2027.

The FA's laws let competitions adapt some details: pitch and goal size, period lengths, substitutions, the sin bin length, touch limits, ball size, an additional match official and how drawn matches are decided. The defaults are given in this guide.