Background Screening / 13.08

Pursuant to US Club Soccer Policy 13.08, background screening (and disqualification-suspension review) is required of all Adult Participants, as follows:

• Direct Adult Participants (DAPs) who are staff (not players) must complete background screening and the Disqualification-Suspension Review requirement via the US Club Soccer staff registration process.
  
  
• For DAPs who are players, and for Third-Party Adult Participants, the applicable Member Organization (which purchased the registration/membership or contracted with the TPAP) is responsible for ensuring the Adult Participant is not on any of the specified registries or disqualification/suspension lists:
  • the applicable sex offender registry(ies) in the relevant state (ex: state where the applicable Member Organization is located)
  • the U.S. Center for SafeSport Centralized Disciplinary Database
  • U.S. Soccer’s Risk Management Disqualifications list (which includes US Club Soccer’s)**
  • US Club Soccer’s Suspensions list**

**Member Org leadership only: To receive an auto-reply with instructions to access these lists, please email DQandSuspensionLists@usclubsoccer.org.

• Adult Participant: Any adult (18 years of age or older) US Club Soccer or a Member Organization authorizes, approves or appoints to have Regular Contact or authority over Minor Athletes in activities within US Club Soccer’s jurisdiction. There are two types of Adult Participants:
  
  • Direct Adult Participant (DAP): Directly affiliated with US Club Soccer or a Member Organization. The large majority of Adult Participants are in this category.
  • Third-party Adult Participant (TPAP): Not directly affiliated with US Club Soccer or a Member Organization, such as athletic trainers from a hospital/healthcare system that a Member Organization uses for a game(s). (Please reference Section 13 of US Club Soccer’s Policy Manual for information about requirements for TPAPs.)
    
• Authority: When one person’s position over another person is such that, based on the totality of the circumstances, they have the power or right to direct, control, give orders to, or make decisions for that person. See also the Power Imbalance definition in the SafeSport Code.
• Minor Athlete: Any individual under 18 years old who participants in activities within US Club Soccer’s jurisdiction. This includes, but is not limited to, players, coaches and referees who are minors.
• Regular Contact: Ongoing interactions during a 12-month period, wherein an Adult Participant is in a role of direct and active engagement with any Minor Athlete(s).

Background screening is required by the earlier of: 1) prior to Regular Contact with a  Minor Athlete, or within the first 45 days of either initial membership or upon beginning a new role subjected the adult to this Policy 13.09.

US Club Soccer’s criminal background screening, part of the staff registration process, is conducted by JDP via the GotSport platform.

Beyond a variety of national and multi-jurisdictional database searches, the scope of this screening generally includes a direct county/state of residence criminal record search for all counties in which an individual has lived within the past seven years, regardless of whether any “hits” appear on the national database searches.

• Background screening of minors is not required.