Soccer Board Member Responsibilities

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Financial Management

To operate efficiently, and without any shade of financial corruption/manipulation, it is solely incumbent upon the membership to know how finances are being handled within their organization.

The organization should provide financial reports to the board, at each scheduled meeting. If meetings are infrequent, the data should be mailed to the board monthly.

Each board member has a ‘fiduciary responsibility‘ to ensuring the proper operation of the organization’s funds. It does not matter that they are a volunteer, and possibly do not want to ‘be involved’ in that aspect of the organization. Accepting a position within the organization makes them responsible for ensuring the proper operation of the organization. This means that they should be well aware of the financial status of the organization, by:

  • Receiving and reading monthly budget reports
  • Voting on the yearly registration fees
  • Voting & being aware of financial expenditures, and how those are to be handled
  • For tournaments; financial reports showing the fees paid by each team, with corresponding depositary reports, and tournament expense records.
  • Large financial expenditures such as purchasing of uniforms & equipment, should be handled by a committee, who’s charter is to find the least expensive vendor. The committee would present its’ recommendation to the full board, after fact-finding deliberation.

How Things Can Go Sideways

Financial corruption can happen in a number of ways, if the proper financial oversight is not working through:

  • People with access to finances feeling ‘entitled’ to use funds at their discretion
  • People in board positions jockeying to get a friend/family member into a paid position.
  • Being in a position to influence if a team pays tournament fees, or gets to play free.
  • Favoritism occurring when deciding who might get to have a trip, or part of a trip, subsidized by the organization for a particular member.
  • A board member pushing business to a family member/friend, for items that the organization needs, instead of pulsing a number of businesses, in a standard ‘biding’ manner. The full board should have the vote on determining who might be sent somewhere to represent the organization, and any board member that has the capability of fulfilling the assignment task should be considered.

Organizations lose money through internal corruption, when members pay no attention to the financial operation of the organization. If you are a board member, when was the last time you reviewed financial documents of your organization, and can say that you know how money is handled? An organization is a dynamic entity, spending money constantly, and all parties should be aware of the money flow.

Efficient Operations

Reducing operating costs should always be a fundamental operating basis. Any item where multiple bidding can occur, to reduce the cost, should be done.

Uniforms & equipment are a prime area, where multiple bids can be sought, resulting often in considerable cost savings for those items. Trying to do ‘local only’ might result in less cost saving for the organization and families. A comparison model should be involved, to evaluate the difference in costs between ‘outside’ bidding, and ‘local’ bidding. Preparing and sending out a ‘bid invitation‘ to uniform vendors can help to pinpoint what is wanted, and bidding operational details.

Registration Fee Estimation

Soccer organizations receive and expend a good amount of money. The organization is basically a business, and how it operates is totally dependent on volunteers and how those volunteers manage the finances of the organization.

Registration fees are the primary basis of income for the organization. For establishing registration fees, there should be a planned and documented process, handled by a group of board members, yearly. This should not be a ‘guess work’ item, and should be done using expense data from the previous year of operations, covering:

  • Referee Fees
  • Field Rental Fees
  • Equipment Costs
  • Field Marking
  • Uniform Costs
  • Misc. supplies (all itemized)
  • Paid Personnel
  • Determining how many teams existed the previous year, and the total number of players, and estimating what those numbers may look like for the upcoming year. This all relates to income and expenses, and how much the organization can, or cannot handle.

Setting the ‘registration fee’ is establishing a potential income budget for the organization to operate from. It is critical to thoroughly evaluate all aspects of income & expenses, so as not to over-charge families, or to under-estimate income required to operate.

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