Pandemic Protocols Made Easy For Youth Soccer Matches
Since the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic was declared in mid-March, soccer on all levels has been suspended. With the current urgency to get players back to healthy lifestyles, and to restart the beautiful game without risking a resurgence of the spread of the pandemic, smart technology is needed to organize the world into safe ‘social distance’ space. GotSoccer has solved this challenge for us.
Getting back on the field — safely and responsibly — is what we all want.
No one knows with absolute certainty when we will be back nor how long the unprecedented disruption of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact soccer — but we all need a way to navigate the days ahead.
When we can let the games begin again, we will need a way to enforce the state and city’s social distancing mandates to protect not only our children but our communities — because, as FIFA‘s Chief Medic Michel D’Hooghe says, “It is a terrible responsibility.”
Now we have a solution.
GotSoccer has just released its new Coronavuris COVID-19 Crises Package which will help players and their families back on the soccer fields all across America — safely.
There is nothing on the market today like it. As US Youth Soccer‘s CEO Skip Gilbert says, “It is very productive and ensures kids can return to play — if USYS were hosting its National or Regional events, we would use it.” US Youth Soccer is the nation’s largest youth sports organization.
“Why wouldn’t you want to evaluate something like this? Especially for hard-hit areas,” said Gilbert.
The GotSoccer Crisis Package is a set of three tools that help a club, league, tournament, or organization navigate this extremely challenging Covid-19 environment. The GotSoccer Crisis Package provides:
- Social Distancing Tool
- Digital Ticketing Tool (Ticket Designation for Games)
- Contact Tracing Tool:
The first tool allows a club, league, or tournament to respect the required mandates or recommendations for social distance so we can all try to avoid a second wave of the pandemic.
While there is not enough known about COVID–19 to predict the future, “Limiting face-to-face contact with others is the best way to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease,” states the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Unfortunately, according to a recent Harvard report*, social distancing may be with us longer than anyone suspects — perhaps even until 2022.
Staying at least 6 feet (about 2 arms’ length) from other people is hard to do when watching your kids play soccer. How do you know how far is far enough? And, what do you do when someone starts to encroach in your space? The GotSoccer Crisis Package to the rescue — literally.
Social Distancing Tool lets you know how many parents can sit on the sideline and watch the game. How? This Social Distancing Tool calculates automatically the quantity of spectators allowed on a specific soccer field based on that field’s dimensions and factoring in the preferred social distancing guidelines.
“This is the culmination of everything we do. We have 135,782 soccer fields in our database.
Gavin Owen-Thomas, CEO of GotSoccer / GotSport
With the enormous number of different sized fields and today’s rapidly changing local, regional, and national guidelines, this tool is irreplaceable. The spectator space on the sideline can be configured into boxes that best suit the player’s families, all with the recommended social distance spacing.
Control the Parent Sideline: If 150 parents can safely sit on the sidelines of a field, how do you make sure only 150 show up? With Ticket Designation for Games, now you can give out free e-tickets to parents and assign each family a box # on the sideline so that social distancing can be respected — and we can continue to slow or stop the insidious spread of COVID-19.
Remember, you need different spacing for one parent than you do for a family of 5 coming to watch.
This tool delivers the tickets to parents or scouts based upon the results of the Social Distancing Tool. The team managers and/or coaches can decide how the tickets should be allocated — and tickets can even be transferred easily.
This tool, Ticket Designation for Games, also lets parents know when to arrive, where to enter, and can provide parking guidelines as well.
All of a sudden the responsibility of the Coronavirus pandemic safety protocols becomes manageable and the GotSoccer software is letting parents know they need their ticket to be admitted, and where their space is on the sideline.
“It would be irresponsible to not use this and I know no one wants to put players and parents’ lives at risk.”
Gavin Owen-Thomas, CEO of GotSoccer / GotSport
Now, what happens if a coach or a player tests positive for COVID-19 a week or two after the soccer game? With so many people showing no symptoms and being the silent spreaders of the pandemic, it is crucial that youth soccer clubs can easily track a player who has a confirmed case of the Coronavirus.
The Contact Tracing Tool solves this problem.
With GotSoccer’s Contact Tracing Tool, a league or tournament can easily track a confirmed case and trace all the player’s games — and with just a few clicks, an email can be sent notifying anyone who might have been exposed, allowing the families to take appropriate safety measures, such as getting tested. The Contact Tracing Tool provides exposure notification in a simple, efficient, and privacy-preserving way.
We all want our kids protected. And we know they want to get outside and play.
It is so important that we all maximize our efforts to fight COVID-19 by allowing technology to do what it was created for —to help us humans do things in seconds that we can’t begin to accomplish in days.
The power of these solutions will help the soccer market meet and exceed the new pandemic protocol and get kids back to playing the beautiful game.
While a critical solution for the first phase of returning to play, these tools can help benefit the game as well as our clubs and players in the future as well.
Read: THE POWER OF AI IN SOCCER: A LOOK AT GOTPRO
The features of the Crises package come from GotSoccer’s new GotTicketing program which was on schedule to launch Spring 2020. CEO and owner Gavin Owen-Thomas, working with master mathematician and top software engineers, had the software configured specifically to fit the needs of today’s world in the hopes of helping people enter the post-pandemic life with greater speed.
With decades of experience working in the soccer industry, Owen-Thomas knows how everyone wants to get back playing on the fields. His clients on the professional side include the MLS and dozens of other world-renowned sports leagues.
Famous for its Rankings of youth soccer teams and industry-leading tournament software, GotSoccer’s registration platform hosts 29 out of the 55 US Youth Soccer State Associations in the USA.
“The road ahead is uncertain but working together using cutting edge technology we can prepare for the future and help our soccer community.
Gavin Owen-Thomas, CEO of GotSoccer / GotSport
Now, let’s look at an example of how it works:
“I believe we are the only ones with all this information, and we have made it super simple to use,” said Gavin Owen-Thomas, CEO of GotSoccer / GotSport.
With over 130,000 soccer fields in the database, search and select your field, and the dimensions are pre-populated.
Enter your preferred social distancing requirements and the software will do the rest.
You can even set up how you want spectators to enter and leave and a designated pathway for walking to the fields.
And it simple to issue tickets to the youth soccer matches.
GotSoccer is a very familiar name in the youth soccer world — GotSoccer has organized tens of thousands of tournaments since 1996 when is first developed tools to help players get on the field. “
*Harvard Report source: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Read: GOTSOCCER’S GLOBAL REACH – THE POWER OF ITS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
