Club rules

Football For Fat Loss is a health and wellbeing club that plays football — the week you put in off the pitch matters as much as the score. Everything here exists so that every player, whatever their level, gets a safe, friendly and genuinely competitive night.

• Everyone's welcome. All shapes, sizes and abilities. No judgement, ever.
• Have fun. It's Monday-night football with your mates — enjoy it. The results will follow.
• Turn up on time. Arrive early enough to weigh in and warm up before kick-off.
• Encourage, don't criticise. We celebrate effort over ability — a good word lifts the whole session.
• Know your body. Tell the coach about any injury or condition before you play, and stop if something hurts.
• Can't make it? Reply on the “Are you in?” card and message your captain. It helps your team plan, and it protects your week (see section 3).
• Leave it as you found it. Bibs back to your captain, rubbish in the bin.

The club is built for adults carrying extra weight who'd rather get fit playing football than dieting alone. There's no entry test: if that sounds like you, you're in. When you sign up we ask for your height and a rough weight. They start your private progress line and they're used for the Healthy Range membership rate; they never score.

Bring to every session:

• Shin pads — mandatory. No shin pads, no game, no exceptions.
• Footwear to suit the surface: astro trainers or moulded studs (no metal studs).
• Any sports top (no hood needed) — the club provides bibs in your team's colour — plus shorts or tracksuit bottoms, and water.

Nothing dangerous can be worn during play — jewellery, watches, casts and the like come off, and taping over them doesn't count. If you wear glasses, sports goggles or contacts are strongly recommended. The referee has the final say on what's safe.

The league scores your week, not your weight. A week runs Tuesday to Monday and is judged at Monday's session. Your week is Green when you've done three things:

• Weighed in at the session. It's your attendance mark and your private progress line — between you, the scales and the coach. Teammates only ever see goals, never weights. One weigh-in a week, before you play; weighing in after your match doesn't count.
• Logged your food diary on at least 4 days. Search a food, scan a barcode or tap a favourite — a line a day is enough.
• Ticked at least 60% of your habit check-ins. Pick up to three habits each week in your diary (steps, water, sleep, no takeaway, an alcohol-free day and more) and tick them daily. No picks, no Green week.

All three and your week is Green. Two is Amber, fewer is Red, and only Green scores.

Excused weigh-ins. Injured? Mark yourself injured on the “Are you in?” card and the weigh-in is excused while you're out — keep coming if you can. Can't make the session for work or family? Reply “Can't make it” on the card before Monday's result goes in and the weigh-in is excused, up to 2 times a season. The diary and habits still have to be done.

Timing. Your week is judged when the result goes in on Monday night. Anything logged after that counts for your streaks and badges, not for that match.

Every player with a Green week scores one wellbeing goal for their team. That's the whole rule: a full team of nine can score up to nine in a week, and nothing else scores off the pitch — not the number on the scales, not milestones, not streaks. The coach may add a discretionary bonus goal to a team when entering a result; it's rare, and it's the coach's call.

Matches are six-a-side with rolling, unlimited substitutions — get your minutes at your own pace. Match length and night-by-night format are set by the club at the start of the season and stay consistent all season.

Every match is decided by combined goals: pitch goals plus that week's wellbeing goals. Most combined goals wins — win 2 points, draw 1, loss 0. A team can lose on the pitch and still win the match on its week; that's the whole idea.

Weigh in before you play. The weigh-in is the club's register: it marks you present for the session, and that attendance is one of the three parts of your Green week. That's why it matters. It isn't about weight loss: the number on the scales stays private and never scores. Every player weighs in before they take the pitch, ringers included. If anyone plays without weighing in first, every game they play in that night is lost on the pitch by the team they played for: it goes down as a 0–5 defeat, whatever the score. Wellbeing goals still count.

Three league tables run all season:

• The league (overall) — ranked on points; ties broken by goal difference, then total wellbeing goals.
• The pitch league — pitch goals only; ties broken by goal difference, then goals scored, then head-to-head.
• The wellbeing league — wellbeing goals only; ties broken by goal difference, then goals scored.

Each season ends with a knockout cup, played as a finals night in the week after the last league round. The bracket is seeded by final league position — in the standard six-team format, 1st and 2nd go straight to the semi-finals while 3rd plays 6th and 4th plays 5th in the quarter-finals — so the league campaign, wellbeing goals included, earns you a shorter road to the trophy. The exact format and game lengths are announced at the start of the season.

• Cup ties are decided by combined goals, exactly like a league match — the night's Green weeks power your whole cup run.
• Cup results never count towards the league — the tables are settled before the cup begins.
• Everything else applies as normal: weigh in before you play, ringer rules and penalties, discipline and the referee's final say.

Every team has a captain, and the armband comes with three jobs:

• Bibs. Collect them in after every session, get them washed, bring them back next week. A team that turns up to no bibs has no captain.
• Availability. Chase your team early in the week and get everyone's reply in on the “Are you in?” card before Monday — the spirit of the club already asks every player to tell their captain when they can't make it.
• Momentum. Champion the week: nudge the food diary and the habit ticks, and make sure nobody's a weigh-in short. Green weeks win matches — a captain who keeps the team ticking off the pitch is worth goals every week.

Captain of the Season. At the end of each season the coach names the captain who's lived the charter best — bibs sorted, team organised, players engaged. The award: the winner's first month of the next season is free.

If a team can't field a full side on the night, it may borrow ringers — players from other teams who've put their name down on their dashboard for that session. The list starts afresh each week once the results are in, so opt in again every week you can play. Captains request the number they need and ringers are assigned automatically from the top of the board — ranked on wellbeing form (Green weeks in a row, then habit check-ins), first come, first served.

• To be eligible, a ringer must have had a Green week the previous session (everyone's eligible in week 1).
• A ringer plays one borrowed game per night, unless ringers are short and the coach asks them to play another.
• A ringer may limit themselves to certain kick-off times; they are only assigned to games at those times.
• A ringer is never assigned against their own team.
• Each borrowed ringer costs the borrowing team a 1-goal penalty on the night, so borrowing keeps you playing but never beats a full squad.
• Borrowing 3 or more ringers forfeits the game on the pitch: it goes down as a 0–5 defeat, whatever the score. Your wellbeing goals still count, and the same applies in the cup.
• A ringer's week always counts for their own team, never the borrowing team.
• A ringer weighs in before they play, like everyone else. It's the register that marks them present, not a weight-loss check: the number on the scales stays private and never scores. Without a weigh-in, both their own team's game and the borrowed game go down as 0–5 defeats (see section 5).
• Borrowing is arranged openly — the coach and the opposing captain know who's playing for whom before kick-off. Fielding a player the opposition wasn't told about forfeits the match on the pitch.

• No offside.
• No sliding tackles. Sliding in where an opponent is playing the ball gives away a free kick — control beats aggression, protect each other.
• All free kicks are indirect except penalties. The ball must be still, opponents give 3 metres, and a goal only counts if the ball touches another player on the way in.
• The goal area belongs to the goalkeeper. Outfield players stay out of it; the keeper stays in it. A defender in his own area concedes a penalty (unless pushed or unable to avoid it); an attacker in the area gives away a free kick. A keeper who leaves the area concedes a penalty — with referee's discretion for momentum on a genuine save.
• Keepers distribute by hand. Goal clearances are rolled out underarm, below head height. Keepers can't kick the ball except in making a save, can't hold it longer than six seconds, and can't take a straight return pass — the ball must touch someone else first.
• Restarts: no goal can be scored directly from a kick-off, kick-in, corner or goal clearance — find a teammate first. When the ball crosses the sideline it's a kick-in, not a throw-in, taken where the ball went out; defenders give 3 metres on every restart.
• Head height: where the venue requires it, the ball must stay below head height — infringements give an indirect free kick from where the ball rose, except off a goalkeeper's save. The club confirms whether this applies at the start of the season.

We run a two-card system, and it's rarely needed:

• Blue card — a 2-minute sin bin for the usual cautionable stuff: dissent, persistent fouling, delaying restarts, not respecting the 3 metres. A second blue in the same match can be shown at the referee's discretion — or upgraded straight to red.
• Red card — off for the night, no return, no bench: serious foul play, violent conduct, spitting, denying an obvious goal with a deliberate handball, or abusive language.
• Zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind and for violence — on the pitch or off it. These go beyond a match suspension to a review of membership.

Games are run by the referee — sometimes that's the coach. They keep time, apply these rules in the spirit of the club, play advantage where it helps the fouled team, and deal with anything these pages don't cover. The referee's decision is final. No ref, no game — respect them and the night works for everyone.