Fall 2025 FAQ's

We're getting new questions daily, and will update these as often as we can!

Step-by-step instructions for families (to register a player).

Step-by-step instructions for team admins (to register a team).

Some questions we've been receiving:

My team currently plays in 6th grade Upper House (U12). In the fall, several players will turn 13, but they will all be in 7th grade. How should I register this team?

• Your team will be a U14 Premier team, as shown here. You can use a naming convention like P - Hawks B14 (where the number correlates to the birth year, in this case 2014)

Is the new Premier division (previously called Upper House) grade-based or age-based?

• For SFYS Premier, you’ll register your team in the Premier bracket that corresponds to the age of your oldest player. If your oldest player turns 11 this year, you would register in either the Premier U11 or U12 bracket, depending on when that player turns 11 (before or after Aug 1, 2025). This information is provided in the list of divisions when you register.
  
  • We didn’t change how your players play, nor how rosters are formed, we’re just trying to make this more intuitive for our community.

I still don’t totally understand what SFYS Premier is.

• SFYS Premier - Formerly known as Upper House. This is the top flight of each age division, perfect for teams looking for a little higher level of competition. 
• If your team wants to play in a tournament, you’ll register in the age group that aligns with your oldest player's age. 

Can you help me with how to name my team based on what division we’ll be playing in?

• Your team name might look something like this

• SFYS City team example: 6th - Killer Orcas
• SFYS Premier team example: P - Killer Orcas G13
• SFYS Varsity team example: V - Killer Orcas 

If my team is comprised ONLY of 4th graders, can we play in the 4th grade Premier division, regardless of player birthdate?

• Yes, that is correct. 
• You'll just need to know the birth date of your oldest player so that when you register you can choose the appropriate group (such as U9 or U10)

Similarly if we have one 5th grader and everyone else is a 4th grader we have to play in the 5th grade division, correct?

• Yes, that is correct. 

When I register for a tournament, how will I register my team, if we are a 4th grade Premier team?

• You will need to register using the birthdate of your oldest player. 

I'm a coach, and in my profile in TopScore, I am listed as "pending," but I can't see what I'm missing.

• Since this is a compliance issue, we will troubleshoot this at a later date with our other new platform partner, Ankored. Right now, priority is getting teams registered and players rostered.

For the Premier middle school level, will we have the option to choose our game size (9v9 or 11v11) once the season starts? 

• No, since we receive field allocations from SF Rec and Park prior to the start of the season, we’ll make sure everyone knows what size field they’re playing on and with what number of players before your first game. No last minute decisions will be required!

I just got familiar with SQWAD. Why are you changing registration platforms again? 

• We received a good deal of feedback about SQWAD, with many users having trouble printing rosters or experiencing glitches in their app. We believe that TopScore will provide a more user-friendly experience, and all sensitive data (like player birth dates) will be stored in a separate - and secure - platform. 
• One bonus with moving to TopScore is that they will host our website too. So registration AND all the information you need will be in one place.
• Plus, TopScore will be importing data from SQWAD, so returning users should see some information already populated when you set up your TopScore account.

I am so curious to know more about how the penalty kick mercy rule actually happens. Is there more info on that?

• Yes! Check out this post on our community portal
• Basically, when a team is winning by 4 goals (or more), in the past, a coach was encouraged to remove a player from the field to make play more equitable. But this doesn’t fit with our Player First mentality. So, let’s say a team is winning 4-1 and they just scored, bringing the score to 5-1. After that goal, the referee would award the losing team a penalty kick, which gives them a chance to even out the score. If they make it, play starts again via a kickoff. If they don’t make it, play resumes via a goal kick, just as if it were a “normal” PK.

Check back again for updates to our FAQ's!