Safeguarding and how sports clubs are embracing the digital arena

The crossover between traditional sports and competitive gaming has moved far beyond a gimmick, with elite clubs actively building dedicated esports divisions.

European giants like Paris Saint-Germain and Formula 1 teams now field professional gamers for tournaments in EA Sports FC, League of Legends, and Rocket League.

For these clubs, entering esports is a direct strategy to engage younger, digital first audiences. However, bringing a gaming operation under an established sporting brand means that clubs cannot treat digital teams as an afterthought, they are held to the exact same cultural, ethical, and legal standards as their traditional athletic academies. 

Football clubs are uniquely positioned to address the safeguarding void in gaming because they already possess decades of experience enforcing strict player-welfare policies and wider safeguarding procedures. Rather than inventing new systems from scratch, clubs are extending their existing physical safeguarding infrastructures into the digital realm:

• Clubs are deploying their dedicated and established safeguarding teams to monitor their esports arm, ensuring young pro gamers have direct access to welfare officers. 

• Clubs apply strict FA and Premier League digital safety policies to their gaming divisions including regulating how staff and coaches communicate with underage players on platforms like Discord or Twitch, enforcing rules against unmonitored direct messaging, and restricting private streaming environments.

• Recognising the physical toll of elite gaming, clubs provide esports athletes with nutritionist consultations, ergonomic assessments, sports psychologists, and mandatory screen-time limits to guard against burnout, toxicity, and mental exhaustion.

Beyond their professional teams, clubs are taking proactive steps to safeguard everyday young gamers across their local communities. A primary example is the UK's "Safe to Play" initiative, a government-backed collaboration between the British Esports Federation, the English Football League (EFL) Trust, and club community foundations.  

Through this scheme, football club trusts run structured esports workshops for young people, using gaming as a hook to teach digital literacy, online safety, and resilience against cyberbullying.

Club facilitators are trained under British Esports’ Duty to Care framework, ensuring that as traditional sports clubs embrace competitive gaming, they actively create safer, healthier online spaces for the next generation of players