Every grassroots club runs on subs. They pay for pitch hire, referees, kit, affiliation fees and the hundred small costs that turn up between August and May. And in most clubs, the person collecting them is a volunteer doing it at the kitchen table after work.
This guide covers the four decisions that make subs collection manageable: what to charge, how people pay, how you keep track, and what to do when someone hasn't paid.
1. Work out what to charge
Start with the season's costs, not with what other clubs charge. List everything the club pays for: pitch and training venue hire, referee fees, league and County FA affiliation, insurance, kit and equipment, first aid supplies, end-of-season presentations. Add a margin for the things you haven't thought of, because there will be some.
Divide that by the number of players you can realistically expect to pay. Be honest about the number. A club with 20 registered players and 14 who actually pay should budget on 14.
Then decide the shape of the charge:
- One annual payment. Simplest to run. Harder for some families to find in one go, so expect more requests to pay in instalments.
- Monthly. Easier on families and steadier for the club's cash flow, but it means twelve collections a year instead of one, so it only works if the collecting is automated.
- Termly or half-season. A middle ground many junior clubs use.
Whatever you choose, write it down once and share it with every parent and player before the season starts, with the dates. Most late payments come from people who didn't know what was due when.
2. Decide how people pay you
There are four common routes, and most clubs use more than one.
Cash. It works until the manager forgets who paid, the float gets mixed up with the tea money, or someone has to bank £340 in coins. Fine for a one-off, poor for a season.
Bank transfer. Better, because the money is traceable. The problem is the reference field. "Subs" from an account in a different surname to the player tells you nothing, and reconciling forty transfers against a squad list is where the spreadsheet comes in.
Standing order. Good for monthly subs. Once it's set up the money arrives without anyone remembering. The weak point is the setup: the parent has to go into their banking app and do it, and it's the parents who don't that you end up chasing.
A payments app. Players or parents pay in the app, the club sees who's paid in the same place, and reminders go from there. The tradeoff is fees. Some platforms charge over 4 percent per transaction plus an annual cost, which on a club collecting £20,000 a season is several hundred pounds leaving grassroots football. Check the transaction rate and any annual fee before you commit, and check whether the club or the payer carries the fee.
A sensible rule: whichever route you choose, it should tell you who has paid without someone having to work it out.
3. Keep track without a spreadsheet becoming your second job
The record matters as much as the money. You need to know, at any moment, who has paid, who hasn't, and who has paid part of what they owe. You also need to be able to show a committee or a parent the position without digging.
If you're on cash and transfers, one shared spreadsheet with a row per player and a column per instalment is the minimum, updated the same day money comes in. The moment it lags a week behind, it stops being trusted.
If you're using a payments platform, use its unpaid filter rather than exporting to a spreadsheet and rebuilding it. The point of the tool is that the list is already there.
Two habits that help either way:
- Give every payment a home before the season starts: a nominated account, a named person, a named place for the record.
- Tell people what you're recording. Parents are more relaxed about paying when they can see the club knows exactly where their money went.
4. Chase late payers without falling out
Every club has a few. Most of them are not refusing to pay. They've forgotten, or money is tight this month, or nobody told them the date. Treat the first reminder as information, not a warning.
A simple three-step approach:
- A reminder to everyone, not just the late payers, a week before each due date. Nobody is singled out and most late payments disappear here.
- A direct message to the individual once the date has passed. Keep it short and friendly, state the amount and the date, and offer to talk if there's a problem. If a parent is struggling, a quiet instalment arrangement keeps the child playing and the club paid.
- A committee conversation if it drags on. Decide as a club, not as one volunteer, what happens when subs are seriously overdue. Whatever the policy is, it should be written down and applied the same way to everyone.
Where Centre Circle fits
Centre Circle is free for clubs, with no platform fee, no annual subscription and no licence cost. The only charge is the transaction fee from the payments provider, which is 0.9 percent plus 15p per payment.
A club secretary creates a membership plan, either one for the whole club or separate ones by team or age group, sets the payment dates and any sibling discount, and the players or parents pay in two taps from the app. The club sees every payment in one place, can filter to unpaid, and can open a one-to-one chat with a parent to send a reminder from the same screen. Payments and the record are the same thing, so there is nothing to reconcile.
Get Centre Circle free on the App Store or Google Play, or read more about how payments work on our Payments page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I decide what to charge for subs?
Start with the season's costs, not with what other clubs charge. List everything the club pays for, add a margin, and divide by the number of players you can realistically expect to pay.
What is the best way to collect subs?
Whichever route you choose, it should tell you who has paid without someone having to work it out. Cash and bank transfers need a spreadsheet kept up the same day; a payments app keeps the record and the money together.
How do I chase parents who haven't paid subs?
Send a reminder to everyone a week before each due date, then a short, friendly direct message once the date has passed. If it drags on, decide the next step as a committee and apply it the same way to everyone.
Does Centre Circle charge clubs to collect subs?
Centre Circle is free for clubs, with no platform fee, no annual subscription and no licence cost. The only charge is the transaction fee from the payments provider, which is 0.9 percent plus 15p per payment.
