Book the fields first
Pick one night or one weekend day and book the same fields for the entire season. Two games per field per night is common for adult rec: 6 pm and 7:30 pm with 90 minute slots, or three games with 60 minute slots for small-sided leagues.
Two fields with two slots each is 4 games a night, which is exactly enough for 8 teams to all play every week.
Decide how many teams and how many weeks
- 8 teams playing each other once is 7 weeks of 4 games.
- 8 teams playing each other twice is 14 weeks.
- 6 teams playing each other twice is 10 weeks of 3 games.
Add one or two weeks for playoffs, and one spare week for games lost to weather. An odd number of teams means one team has a bye each week.
Set the rules once
- Small-sided or full-sided, and the minimum number of players to start.
- Half length and substitutions.
- Slide tackles: most adult rec leagues ban them.
- Points: 3 for a win, 1 for a draw, and what a forfeit counts as.
- Cards and suspensions.
- Co-ed rules, if you run a mixed league: how many of each on the field.
Referees and captains
Book referees for the season, not week by week. Ask each team for a captain who reports the score after the game, so the table is right the same night.
Keep the table on one link
Players check the table more than anything else. Put the fixtures, results and table where every player can open them on their phone, and update them as soon as scores come in.
Finish with playoffs
The top 4 in a semi-final and final is the simplest. Seed from the final table, and decide before the season how a draw is settled: extra time, penalties or both.
