BUAFL teams and BAFRA officials

BAFRA is the British American Football Referees Association. We aim to supply neutral, qualified officials for all games of American football played in Britain. We are one of the member organisations of the British American Football Association (BAFA).

We provide officials to games under a standard set of Terms & Conditions (see http://www.bafra.org/rulesctee/rulebook/2008/terms.html for the full version), but this document summarises them and sets out what BUAFL teams and BAFRA officials can expect of each other, and how the relationship can be managed for mutual benefit.

Getting officials for your games

BAFRA needs to know when (date and time) and where your games will be played. Normally, this information is passed to us by the league, but any changes (especially at short notice) need to be notified directly and immediately.

Your contact in BAFRA for scheduling is our Director of Operations, Pete Johnson.
His email is operations@bafra.org. Don't assume he's received your email until you receive an acknowledgement.
His phone number is 07956 125222 – use that for any changes within 72 hours of kickoff

Unfortunately, we currently don't have enough officials to cover every game on a weekend. You can help us with this by:

· moving your kickoff time so that the same crew of officials can cover two games in one day in the same area

· not playing in areas of the country where we have fewer officials than teams (this includes Scotland, Wales, the north of England and the south-west of England) – yes, we know this is a hard one for you to fix if that's where you are!

We will notify teams and leagues of which games we are covering and which games we are not. See http://www.bafra.org/info/schedule.htm for the latest state of play. Note that this may change at short notice if officials' availability changes.

What if BAFRA cannot supply officials?

See the league's regulations for details of how you can play a game without BAFRA officials.

Paying the officials

What do we pay?

BAFRA will normally assign a 4-man crew to your regular season games. For playoffs beyond the first round, this will go up to 5. If we supply more than the normal number, you just pay for the normal number – i.e. the regular fee will be split among the crew. If we supply only 3, you pay for only 3.

As of the time of writing, the fee per official is £40. (If we send you an official who is still undergoing introductory training, the fee for them is only £25.) In addition, for each game (or pair of games in a double-header at the same venue) we charge a BAFRA administration fee of £65. This is used to pay officials' travel expenses and the running costs of the association. The normal total amount of money you will have to pay is therefore £225 per game.

How do we pay?

· By cash or cheque before or after (within 30 minutes of the final whistle) the game. Each official must be paid individually (i.e. not by one big cheque).

We understand that some athletic unions do not allow their teams to pay in cash and/or may take several days to prepare a cheque. It is your responsibility to sort out a satisfactory means of resolving this. We can be flexible, but only if you contact us in advance to make appropriate arrangements.

We take non-payment very, very seriously and if, for any reason, the officials leave the ground unpaid and you do not contact us to arrange payment within 3 days you will not receive officials for any games (home or away) until the debt is cleared. In addition, there is a £25 handling charge automatically added to any late payment. We may also insist on pre-payment at least one hour before any subsequent game kicks off.

To request an advance invoice, or to discuss any financial problems, contact our Director of Finance, Charlie Dean-Young.
His email is finance@bafra.org. Don't assume he's received your email until you receive an acknowledgement.
His phone number is 01889 560680

Playing the game

All games of British American football are played to BAFA Rules. The complete rulebook is online at http://rb.bafra.org/.

BAFA rules are not the same as NFL rules. They are based on American college (NCAA) rules with variations for unusual sized fields and game management issues.

Teams can address questions on rule interpretation to the Chairman of the BAFA Rules Committee, Jim Briggs, at rules@bafra.org.

What facilities do officials expect?

BAFA rules lay down certain minimum standards for facilities and game management. These are mainly located in Rules 1 (The Game, Field, Players and Equipment) and 13 (Standards for Game Management). Note that these are minimum standards, not standards of perfection. Teams that don't meet them may be liable to league sanctions and, in extremis, refusal of BAFRA to assign officials.

Changing rooms

The officials will normally arrive 90 minutes to 2 hours before kickoff. You must provide a changing room for the officials with enough seats for the size of crew. It should be separate from the teams, clean, warm, dry and quiet, with shower and toilet facilities and adequate coat hooks. It should be secure, i.e. either provide a key, or assign someone to lock and unlock the room as required.

Field markings

Information about marking out a field for American football can be found at http://www.bafra.org/rulesctee/field/index.htm. This includes a field diagram and notes for groundsmen. Note that a field marked to NFL standards is neither correct nor necessary.

The marking of the following lines is mandatory: sidelines, end lines, goal lines, yard lines at 5-yard intervals, inbounds lines (hash marks). If your university won't allow permanent markings on the field, consider using a temporary paint or tape on an artificial surface.

The officials will carry out a field audit on behalf of BAFA. The form used for this can be found at http://www.bafra.org/teampack2008/field/FieldAuditR4B.pdf – it is advisable to use it to do a self-audit to see how you perform: a perfect score is 0! At the end of the season, BAFRA will make an award to the team with the best performance overall.

Game management

You need to provide the officials with equipment and at least 5 people about 30 minutes before kickoff. The equipment is the chains and down box, plus at least 3 properly inflated footballs in good condition. The people are 3 to operate the chains and down box, and 2 to be ball boys. They must all be at least 14 years of age, but adults are strongly recommended. Appointing a regular group of people to do this at every game is a good idea.

Medical facilities

1. A registered doctor, registered nurse, registered paramedic, registered physiotherapist or a first aider. This person must not be a squad member.

2. A first aid kit including a suitable (preferably inflatable) set of limb splints.

4. An ambulance and crew must be available if a doctor or paramedic is not. An ambulance is defined to be a vehicle constructed and equipped for the purpose of carrying stretcher-bound patients to hospital.

NOTE: Available means inside or immediately outside the stadium and fit for use (Exception: An ambulance and its crew are defined to be available at a game even though they may be absent from the stadium in the act of transporting someone to hospital.)

Cancellations

A game will not be started (or continue if already underway) if any of the following is the case:

· The markings and facilities are, in the judgement of the referee, inadequate for the game to proceed

Incident reports

After the game, the officials will make an incident report if (a) any player was disqualified; (b) any mandatory game management requirement was not met; or (c) any other significant incident took place.

Incident reports are published in BAFRA's weekly newsletter Newsflash. That week's edition is normally available at http://www.bafra.org/newsflash/index.htm on a Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. You are advised to check it and address immediately any issues it raises about your team.

Appeals

Feedback

At all games, the referee will give each Head Coach a postcard to complete to provide feedback on the officials. Please affix a stamp and send it in. We appreciate your input, which is used as part of the determination of who the best officials are for selection to the bowl game.

If you wish to provide more detailed feedback, or raise any issues either positive or negative, please contact our Director of Training, David Parsons. His email is training@bafra.org.

Helping you prepare for the season

BAFRA runs a scheme whereby an official in your area will come along to one of your training sessions and answer any questions about rules, their interpretation, etc. This can either take place in a meeting room or field environment.

If you would like to take advantage of this, contact Director of Operations, Pete Johnson, as above. Please give as much notice as possible.

Recruitment

Finally, our ability to cover all BUAFL games rests entirely on the number of people we can recruit to the ranks of officiating. If each team recruited just 4 people to become officials, we would be able to provide a complete 7-man crew for every game, and the amount of travelling that officials had to do would be considerably reduced.

· recruiting people to be referees (and chain crew members, ball boys, etc.) as well as players at your freshers events

· reminding people that refereeing is a useful way of earning money (and getting some exercise)

· promoting refereeing to your final-year players as a way of staying in the game

· including positive articles about refereeing on your website, in match programmes, your university's sports newspaper, your local press, etc.

Anyone wanting to find out more about becoming an official can complete the form at http://www.bafra.org/info/application.htm and someone from BAFRA will contact them.

BUAFL teams and BAFRA officials – a guide

Introduction