Associate Membership

Associate Membership is targeted at new clubs who are wishing to join the Amateur Football Combination in a season or two, and may be of particular interest to Youth Clubs who are looking to expand into Adult football. Normally such clubs are asked to "play a season of friendlies" prior to joining the league, and Associate Membership has been introduced to help new clubs to organise these friendlies.

Associate Membership allows a club to have its details published on the website and receive the weekly bulletin, in order to arrange friendly games, but does not allow the club to play league football, nor have any voting rights within the league.

An application for associate membership should include a completed New Club Application Form.

Requirements for Application

1. A Club applying for Associate Membership must be able to submit its Rules, Disciplinary Code, Estimate of Playing Members and details of proposed ground and hospitality venue (i.e. points 2, 3 and 4). Applicants for Associate Membership do NOT need to be proposed and seconded by two Full Member Clubs from the League.

Associate Membership may be granted, suspended or withdrawn at any time by the Executive Committee (under guidance from the Amenities and/or Discipline committees).

2. An Associate Club is required to affiliate to the Amateur Football Alliance, our parent County Football Association.

3. An Associate Member pays a subscription to the AFC of £30.

4. An Associate Member receives the fixtures/results bulletin each week to assist them in arranging fixtures (the bulletin lists all AFC sides who are "spare" that week).

5. Associate Members are required to submit a CRS (Comprehensive Result Sheet) each week, so that the league can monitor their progress in friendlies - most of which we hope have been played against AFC Clubs.

Restrictions

1. An Associate Member has no voting rights on the league (they can send representatives to General Meetings, but not vote) and cannot send club representatives to the Executive.

2. No club shall be permitted to be an Associate Member without applying to join the league proper for more than two years (the expectation is that after one or two years associate membership, the club will have made a firm decision about whether it wishes to join the AFC).

3. When an Associate Member wishes to apply to join the league as a Full Member, they still need to get a proposer and seconder from existing full member clubs (which, after a season of friendlies shouldn't prove problematic one would hope).

Transferring Clubs

It should be made clear that Associate Membership is not a prerequisite of applying to join the AFC, and is not expected to be suitable for all clubs. Existing adult clubs playing in other leagues are unlikely to need to apply for Associate Membership and play a season of friendlies. As long as they make their applications by the deadlines shown above their applications will be considered in the normal way.