Two exciting new game-play modifications!

Guest play and the mercy rule: two often-discussed and highly contested parameters in our league. As a Players First organization, we are constantly working to make the game better for all the youth. We think these two new updates for Fall 2025 will do that, and will have many of you breathing a sigh of relief!

• Guest Play: new for Fall 2025, guest play will be unlimited for regular season games. We hope this eliminates many forfeits and helps keep the kids playing! Players can guest on your team any time, as long as they are rostered on another SFYS team.
• Guest Player Pools: we know some of our teams have too many players for one team and yet too few players for two teams, based on roster minimum and maximum numbers. If this sounds familiar, you'll be able to create a "guest player pool," basically creating an overflow roster for your team.  
  • Example: I coach a 7th grade team and have 20 players interested in playing on my team. Several players can only make it to a handful of games, and some players can't commit to 2 practices per week, but they still want to play with their friends on this team. This sounds like a perfect situation for creating a guest player pool! I'll create my roster that includes the 13 players who can fully commit, and then I'll create a guest player pool with the other 7 players on it. During the regular season, I can pull from my guest player pool anytime I don't have enough players for a game.
  • A guest player pool is an overflow for any specific team. But, if another team in your bracket is looking for guest players, any rostered player from any team (including the guest player pool for your team) can guest on that team!
• The Mercy Rule: in the past when the goal differential in a game becomes lopsided (ie a game has a score of 5-0 or 8-3), we have asked the coach to remove a player to try and make play more equitable. We've been beta-testing a new idea this season...using Penalty Kicks to offset the score, and keeping all players on the pitch.
  • Example: the Dragons are playing the Rockets and the Dragons have just scored again, bringing the score to 6-1. Rather than asking the Dragons coach to remove a player from the pitch, we will award the Rockets a Penalty Kick (PK), thereby giving them an opportunity to score. This has gotten very positive feedback from players and coaches alike, so we'll implement it across all SFYS City (formerly recreational) divisions in the fall.