AFC Bournemouth
AFC Bournemouth is lending its full support to Play Safe – a national FA-led campaign to raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding in football.
Play Safe is being run in partnership with the NSPCC and has the full backing of the Premier League, EFL, Barclays FA Women’s Super League and the FA Women’s Championship. It’s also supported and being run across every other level of the game.
The main element of Play Safe is a series of short films which emphasise the importance of clubs such as ours having safeguarding embedded in all that we do.
The films also explain to parents/carers and children themselves to ensure they know what to do if they feel unsafe or worried, because nothing matters more than making sure football is safe for everyone.
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Play Safe - Children of all ages
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Play Safe - Parents & Carers
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Play Safe - Club Officials
Meredith Hack, AFC Bournemouth Head of Safeguarding, said: “We are proud to be giving our support to the FA’s Play Safe campaign, both this weekend and throughout the rest of the football calendar.
"We work very hard to ensure our football club is a safe and inclusive environment for everyone, and we are pleased that this national campaign will continue to raise awareness of what is a crucial issue for our sport.”
Mark Bullingham, the FA Chief Executive, said: “As a youth team coach, I will be working with my club to ensure we support the Play Safe messaging.
“I am also pleased that the campaign has the support of the former footballers with lived experience of abuse in football, who are on our Survivor Support and Safeguarding Advisory Group.
"The Group has collectively said: Learning from the past is crucial, so that we can prevent the horrific experiences that happened to us and so many others in football, from happening again."
Bullingham continued: “As a group of survivors, we fully support the ethos and important messages that Play Safe conveys – whether to club officials, parents and carers, or children and young people themselves.
"Equally important is that Play Safe is not a one-off campaign – it will be used at key points in the football calendar to remind everyone in football that children’s welfare and keeping them safe should be at the heart of all that we do."
