CEO Statement
1 May 2020
The impact of COVID-19 has resulted in the suspension of all football activities from March 16. Since that time, the priority of Football South Australia has been to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the community and to undertake its social responsibility to do everything it can to slow down the spread of COVID-19.
Football SA extends its gratitude to the football family for its understanding and support during this time.
Our sport has been involved in a government led taskforce working through issues related to sporting clubs and associations. Further to this, regular club and association meetings, as well as one on one discussions with stakeholders have been held to ensure we are all working together to understand the difficulties we are facing, and to work in a unified manner.
The Prime Minister earlier today announced guidelines for a return to training for community sport developed by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). This document (The AIS Framework for Rebooting Sport in a COVID-19 Environment) can be found here.
Football SA this afternoon participated in a seminar with Hon Corey Wingard, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing for a later update from a South Australian perspective.
We have been working on a return to training framework for clubs and following the release of the AIS document, the two are being aligned. Training will recommence as of Monday, 11 May 2020 under Level B AIS recommendations. The document will be released to clubs and associations early next week and will be followed up by an online Q&A for all clubs and associations.
Resumption of training will be achieved in a staged approach in line with government recommendations and is the first step towards the resumption of competitions. We will continue to consult with all to ensure our safe return.
To further aid the fight against COVID-19, Football SA supports the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app and encourages all members of the football community to get behind this initiative. The app can be downloaded from the Apple App store and Google Play.
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