Little League Football Officers' Manual

31 LEAGUE EXPANSION

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Once a League is established you may find that increasing numbers of children apply to join. In time, this may lead you to consider expanding from the original six team League.

In most cases you will tend to find that many younger children will apply to join and this may result in your setting up mini-soccer leagues, which are compulsory for Under 10's and younger.

In addition, it may be possible to form a secondary league for surplus older children. This will have the additional bonus of acting as a feeder league for your main section and ultimately mean you are less dependant on the right number of trialists to fill vacancies.

Of course, it may also be possible to form a girls' league based on the same principles as the boys' section.

Expansion can lead to difficulties and tensions between the various sections unless your organisation is properly structured.

The selection and promotion of players within your League must be administered by the Secretary. Team Managers with vacancies cannot 'invite' players to join their team.

If a child leaves the senior section during the season, then his/her replacement should be selected from children of the same league age playing in the secondary section. The secondary team will then select their replacement from either a pool of reserve players or from another section below them.
For this process to run smoothly it is important that replacement players are selected promptly and once selected, that player must move up.

Team managers must be made aware of this process when joining the organisation so that ultimately the most able players gravitate to the strongest section.