Keeping young players safe.

Messages go to guardians

• When a club records a guardian for a player, the guardian is contacted and the player is not. Squad, fixture, session and availability messages, and anything the club writes to its players, go to every guardian recorded for them.
• A guardian is only ever linked by the club. A club admin adds the link, approves a join request a guardian filled in, or invites the player and guardian together. Nobody can make themselves a child’s guardian.
• Guardians act for their players. They answer availability, consents and the club’s documents on the player’s behalf, in the Player Hub.
• We never decide anything from a date of birth. Many players’ dates of birth are never recorded, and a rule that guessed would fail for exactly those children. What decides who is contacted is the guardian your club has recorded, so recording guardians is the most important thing a youth section can do.

Nobody can message a child privately

• LEKKIN has no private messages, between anyone. There is no way for one person to write to another one-to-one.
• A club writes to groups, never to a chosen person. Club admins can send a message to all of the club’s admins, all its team managers, everyone, or all its players (through their guardians). Every message is recorded.
• A governing body can’t write to your players. A county or league body can write to clubs’ admins. The only thing that reaches your players or their guardians from a body is the standard notice when a league fixture is arranged or changes.

Team messages are open, and looked after

• Each team has one conversation, and everyone in it sees the same thing. The coaches post; each player's guardians read and reply. Where a player has no guardian recorded, the player is in it themselves, except on a youth team, where they are left out until the club records a guardian.
• Nothing said can be changed or taken back by whoever said it. No editing, no deleting. What was written stays as it was written.
• Anyone in it can report a post. The club's Welfare Officer is told straight away, or the club's admins if it has none. Nobody else is told who reported it.
• The Welfare Officer can read every team's messages, hide a post with a reason (everyone sees that something was hidden, not what), and export a conversation in full for a referral. They cannot post, and every time they open a team's messages from outside it, that is recorded.
• Emails say a message is waiting, never what it says. The words stay on LEKKIN, where the club can hide them.
• Messages are kept for two years, or six where anything in the thread was reported or hidden, because a concern can come to light late.

People see only what their role needs

• A player or guardian sees their own information, and the player they act for, and nobody else’s. Fixtures and sessions show when and where, not who else is in the squad. In a team's messages they see the name of whoever posts or replies, and nothing else about them.
• Everyone who can see a child’s details signs in with two steps. Every club admin, secretary, team manager and anyone else with a role must sign in with a passkey (Face ID, a fingerprint or their device’s PIN) or an authenticator app, as well as their password. Required from 1 November 2026, and anyone given a role after that has 30 days to set it up. Players and guardians, who only ever see their own details, don’t need it.
• A team manager sees their own team. A club admin sees their own club. Every request is checked on our servers, not just hidden in the app.
• Consent answers stay with the club’s admins. A manager sees only that a player has said no to photographs, beside their name, not the full record.
• Public pages show no players. Your club’s join page and pitch booking page show the club and its teams, never a player’s name.

Your club stays in charge

• Consent, asked properly. Every player is asked about privacy, photographs and the code of conduct, in words written for the player and separate words for a guardian. Your club can add questions of its own.
• Your safeguarding policy, read. Upload your policy and mark it must read, and you can see who has opened it. Upload a new version and everyone is asked again.
• Private files stay private. Your club’s documents are never on a public link. Each time someone opens one, they get a link that stops working five minutes later.
• Every change is recorded. Your club’s admins can see what changed and who changed it. When LEKKIN support has to act on someone’s behalf, it is recorded as support, and support can’t answer a consent or open a document as somebody else.
• Anyone can turn emails off. Every email has a link to stop that kind of email, which works without signing in, including for a guardian with no account.

What LEKKIN doesn’t replace

Software can make the safe way the easy way. It can’t be your club’s safeguarding. Your club still needs its own Welfare Officer, its own safeguarding policy, the checks your sport requires for people who work with children, and guardians recorded for its young players.

If you are worried about a child

• If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.
• Tell your club’s Welfare Officer. They know the child and the club, and they will know who to involve next.
• Or your sport’s governing body. In football, that is your County FA’s designated safeguarding officer: see how to report a concern on the FA’s site.
• The NSPCC helpline is for any adult worried about a child: 0808 800 5000, or help@nspcc.org.uk. Children and young people can talk to Childline.
• If the concern is about something on LEKKIN, such as a message, a photo or someone’s access, also email us at hello@lekkin.com and we will help your club deal with it.

How we handle personal data is set out in the privacy notice.