Applicable to: Basketball, Football/Soccer

Applicable to: Association Administrators, Club Administrators

Application(s): Admin Portal

This article will cover the following:

1. What Season Permits are and when to use them
2. How Season Permits differ from transfers
3. Managing Season Permits in your competition
4. Configuring auto-approvals

Related articles:

• Club Administrators: Processing Season Permit requests
• Players/Participants: Registering with a Season Permit

Overview

Season Permits enable players to represent two clubs within the same competition while maintaining their primary club registration. This gives associations flexibility to allow multi-club participation without requiring players to transfer between clubs.

This feature is available for associations using local transfer configurations and can be enabled alongside your existing transfer system. This includes Football/Soccer and Basketball in Australia. For more information on transfers and permits in Cricket or AFL, visit this support article.

When a player requests a Season Permit, they remain registered with their source (home) club while gaining approval to participate in games for a destination (secondary) club during the competition season.

Understanding Season Permits

What is a Season Permit?

A Season Permit allows a player to be listed on rosters and participate in games for two different clubs within the same competition. The player maintains their primary registration and affiliation with their home club while being granted permission to also play for a secondary club.

This is particularly useful when:

• A player's primary team plays in a higher division but they want to also play in a social grade
• Clubs have player availability challenges and need temporary roster support
• Associations want to encourage participation across multiple teams without requiring transfers

Key difference between transfers and permits: A Transfer moves a player between clubs, while a Season Permit allows simultaneous participation at both clubs.

Learn more: Overview of Season Permits

When is a Season Permit triggered in registration?

A season permit is only required if all of the following conditions are met:

1. The player is registering to a club (not an association)
2. The player’s registration is to a different club than their current club in the same competition season; and,
3. The competition being registered to has season permits enabled

When Season Permits do not apply

Season Permits requests are never required for:

• Coach or team manager registrations
• Independent (non-club) registrations
• A player's first registration within a competition
• Subsequent player registrations to the same club within a competition
• Registrations to a different competition run by the same association

Who initiates Season Permits?

Season Permits can be initiated by a player when registering to a secondary club in a competition season, if this option is made available by the Association in the Competition settings. 

A Season Permit requires the approval of the player’s source (home) and destination (secondary) club, and their association, before the player can complete their registration to their secondary club.

Managing Season Permits

Enabling permits in your competition

Configure permits

1. In the Admin Portal, navigate to your Competition
2. Open the Settings tab
3. Toggle on the Transfers setting, then toggle on the Permits setting

Nominate auto-approval period

Only an association can nominate a period after which Season Permit requests in a competition will be automatically approved if not actioned by an organisation. This can be anywhere between 1 and 10 days.

1. In the Competition > Settings, navigate to the Automatic Approval section of the Permits setting
2. Select the automatic approval window, after 1-10 days, after which permit requests will be automatically approved if not actioned by the organisation (source club, association, or destination club)

Season Permit approval workflow

Season Permits require approval from multiple parties to ensure all stakeholders agree to the dual-club participation arrangement.

Approval stages

1. Source Club – Reviews and approves the outbound permit request
2. Association – Reviews and approves at competition level
3. Destination Club – Reviews and approves the inbound permit request
4. Player Registration – Player completes registration to activate the permit

Each party can receives automatic email notifications when action is required. The permit progresses to the next stage only after approval at each step.

⚠️ Important: If any party declines the permit request, the process stops and the player cannot participate for the destination club under a Season Permit.

Season Permit Email notifications

The system automatically sends notifications to the Player requesting a Season Permit at each stage.

For organisations to receive player season permit notifications that require approval, your organisation must enable season permit notifications.

1. Navigate to the Notifications tab within the My Organisation > Overview section
2. Populate the email address to which you want notifications to be sent to, and select + Add
3. Toggle on the Permits notification, and Update & Save your changes

These are the following notifications which each party will receive (if configured):

• Player (On Request) – Confirmation that the season permit request has been submitted
• Source Club – Notification of outbound permit requiring approval
• Association – Notification of permit requiring review
• Destination Club – Notification of permit status as it progresses
• Player (On Approval) – Approval confirmation with link to complete registration

The organisation who is next in line to approve will receive the following email:

Once approved, the participant will receive and email to complete their registration.

Initiating a Season Permit

If a player requires a season permit during registration, they will see a Request to Play screen.

They will have the option to initiate a Transfer or a Season Permit (if applicable).

If the participant wishes to play for an additional club without changing their home club, they should select Season Permit and then select Submit Request to Play.

This will trigger an approval flow for the club and association admins. Once approved, the participant will receive and email to complete their registration.

Once the registration is complete, a season permit record will be created for the destination club, and the player can be added to a team and/or line-up for their secondary club.

Managing Season Permits

To approve or decline a season permit request, navigate to your organisation’s Transfers & Permits request list and switch to the Permits tab. Select View next to the season permit requiring your organisation’s approval.

Review the request and select ‘Approve’ to approve the request, or ‘Decline’ to decline the request. When finished, select ‘Done’ to close the request and return to your organisation’s transfer list.

• Approved Request: When a request is approved, the request is forwarded to the next approving organisation. When all approvals are completed, the player will receive an email notifying them of the success and a link to complete their registration.
• Declined Request: If an organisation declines a Season Permit request, they will need to enter a reason, and the player will be unable to play for their new club. The status of the season permit request will change to Declined, and the reason and additional details that were added by the organisation who declined the request will be made visible to all organisations within the approval flow (not to the player).

What happens after permit approval

Once all approvals are obtained, and the player completes their registration:

• Player appears on both source club and destination club participant lists
• Player maintains primary registration at source club
• Player is eligible to participate for both clubs within the competition season
• Association dashboards reflect dual-club participation status
• Both clubs can select the player for team participation

Important considerations

Before enabling Season Permits

Consider the following before implementing Season Permits in your competition:

• Competition rules – Review your competition's rules regarding multi-club participation and ensure Season Permits align with your governance requirements
• Eligibility restrictions – Determine whether any grades or divisions should have restrictions on dual-club participation (e.g. finals eligibility, representative grades)
• Communication – Clearly communicate permit eligibility rules and any participation limits to member clubs and players
• Administrative capacity – Consider whether auto-approvals are appropriate for your competition's governance model

Frequently asked questions

When should we use Season Permits instead of transfers? Use Season Permits when you want players to maintain their primary club affiliation while participating for a second club. This is ideal for competitions where you want to encourage participation across multiple teams without requiring players to leave their home club. Transfers are more appropriate when a player is permanently moving from one club to another.

What happens if a club declines a Season Permit request? If any party in the approval workflow declines a Season Permit request, the process stops immediately and the player cannot participate for the destination club under a Season Permit. The player remains registered only with their source club. Clubs can provide a reason when declining, which is communicated to the requesting party.

Do Season Permits affect player statistics or awards? Players with Season Permits accumulate statistics separately for each club they represent. Your association should clearly define in competition rules how dual-club participation affects eligibility for awards, MVP selections, or finals participation.

How do we monitor Season Permit activity across our competition? Access the Permits list in the Admin Portal to view all active, pending, and declined permits. You can filter by club, player, or approval status to monitor permit activity and identify any patterns requiring policy review. A Permit Report can be run for a select period of time as well.