The Football Foundation announced its intention to invest £3.75m into providing goals, not on a new for old basis, but to replace goals which fail to meet the British Standards safety requirements and are thus deemed unsafe.

Following several deaths and tens of serious injuries over the past decade as a result of unsafe goals, The FA begun a lengthy and dedicated awareness campaign to all pitch providers, clubs, schools, Local Authorities, Town and Parish Councils and match officials at contributory league level.

In addition, all FA or County FA Learning courses include reference to this subject to try to increase its intensity across all levels of the game.

FA National Facilities Manager, Steve Williams, said: "The FA is committed to ensuring that football can be played in a safe and enjoyable environment at all levels of the game.

"Our Goalpost Safety Campaign has been in place for six years now and has succeeded in raising awareness among all pitch providers of the need to regularly check that goals are in proper condition and do not present a safety risk."

To help you, unsafe goals can often be categorised as follows:

  • Wooden goals that have weathered, rotted or been poorly maintained – these goals when tested have always failed strength tests to the crossbar.
  • Goals where metal cup hooks are still evident on the posts and/or crossbar.
  • Goals which are more than 9 years old (i.e. pre-1996 when the British Standard was introduced) and may be rusted or corroded.
  • Goals which are not socketed correctly and the ground conditions are such that the goal moves beyond an acceptable tolerance.
  • Free-standing goals (including mini-soccer) where weights and anchors are not used or the parts are missing or have become broken.

Application forms for the replacement of unsafe goals can be obtained from either The Football Foundation website, their helpline on 0800 0277766 or through your local County FA.

The FA is continuing to work with manufacturers of goals and the British Standards Institute (BSi) to ensure we see a past to injuries and deaths resulting from such equipment.

This involves the completion of a lengthy piece of work with the BSi around standards for goals and it is expected that a new standard will be in the public domain during late summer.