Most grassroots football clubs across the UK and Ireland run summer camps as 3–5 day programmes during school holidays, charging £60–£100 per child. A 50-child, 5-day camp brings in around £3,000–£5,000, with most clubs netting £1,500–£3,000 after pitch hire, coach wages, equipment and insurance.
The main admin areas are safeguarding (background checks, a welfare officer, consent forms), registration and payment collection, risk assessments, and parent communications.
If you’re sitting on a committee thinking about running a summer camp for the first time or you’ve done one before and want to make next year’s smoother, then this is the guide for you. It covers what to charge, what your FA expects, where the admin actually goes wrong, and how to take bookings without spending three weekends chasing parents for payment.
"If you want your camps to run smoothly with less manual work, TeamFeePay is a great option."
Glenn Crooks
Academy Operations Manager & Community Engagement Officer
Larne FC, Northern Ireland
Why Your Club Should Consider Running Summer Camps
Running a summer camp is an extremely effective way to boost your club, it does four jobs at once:
Player development — extra coaching time outside the regular season
Holiday childcare — parents need something for the kids in July and August
Recruitment — non-member families get a first look at your club
Fundraising — a well-run camp brings in real money
A camp is also one of the easiest ways to bring new families into your wider club community. They book the camp, they meet your coaches, and they’re a much easier conversation when membership rolls around.
Most clubs charge £60–£100 per child for a 5-day camp. That’s in line with grassroots camp pricing across the UK and Ireland, and well below council holiday schemes or academy-style camps which can run £150–£300+ per week.
The simple way to set your price is to: add up your costs, divide by the number of players you expect, add a surplus for the club.
Worked example — a 5-day camp with 50 children at £100 each:
Income: £5,000
Coaches: £1,500–£2,000
Pitch hire: £500–£800
Equipment, admin, first aid: £300–£500
Surplus: £1,500–£2,500
Setting tiered pricing — early-bird, member, sibling and single-day rates at the same time as you open bookings saves you the back-and-forth of handling different prices manually. TeamFeePay’s camps booker lets you set all four at once when you publish the page, making it simple to offer flexible pricing.
Compliance For Football Summer Camps
Safeguarding is the area most likely to cause you problems if it’s not in order before the camp starts. Here are the essentials:
Background checks — DBS in England, Wales and Scotland; AccessNI in Northern Ireland; Garda Vetting in the Republic of Ireland. Required for every coach and volunteer working with children
Designated Welfare Officer — appointed in writing, named to parents, with a clear reporting route
Safeguarding training — approved by your national FA (The FA, Scottish FA, FA of Wales, Irish FA or FAI depending on where your club is based) for everyone working with children at the camp
Public liability insurance — check your club policy covers camp activities; some insurers treat camps as separate events
FA affiliation — most national and county FAs expect their affiliated clubs to follow grassroots camp guidance
Operational Admin - Where Committees Lose hours
The football side of a summer camp is the easy part to plan. It’s the admin that catches most committees off guard — not because they haven’t thought about it, but because there’s often more of it than it first appears.
- Registration — names, ages, parent contacts, consent for photos and emergency medical treatment. Sounds straightforward until you've got 80 children registered across three age groups and you're trying to find one parent's emergency number at 9am on day one.
- Medical information — allergies, asthma, medications, conditions. This needs to be collected before anyone sets foot on the pitch, not discovered on the day. One missed detail here isn't just an admin problem.
- Sign-in and sign-out — daily registers, named collectors at pick-up. Every session, every day, no exceptions. A clear process here protects the club and gives parents confidence from day one.
- Payment collection and reconciliation — who's paid, who hasn't, who said they'd sort it on the day. Without upfront online payment, this becomes a running task across the whole camp week.
- Refunds and transfers — what happens if a child can't attend? Without a clear policy written down before bookings open, every cancellation becomes a negotiation.
- Parent communications — pre-camp info, kit lists, weather updates, daily reminders. Parents ask the same questions repeatedly if the information isn't proactively sent. A welcome email before camp week saves a lot of WhatsApp messages.
How TeamFeePay Eases Summer Camp Admin
Running a summer camp involves a lot of moving parts — registration, payments, consent forms, medical information, attendance, reporting. Most clubs manage these across a mix of Google Forms, WhatsApp and spreadsheets. It works until it doesn’t.
TeamFeePay’s Camps & Tournaments Booker brings it all into one place. Parents register, pay and submit medical and consent information in a single flow. You get instant payment collection straight to your club account, attendance tracking, and custom reports on registrations and revenue — all from one dashboard.
If you’re running more than one camp, each gets its own registration link and payment setup. No crossover, no confusion.
No technical skills needed. Add your details, set your price, share your link. You can be live in an afternoon.
Taking Payments & Outlining Booking Policies
The fallback for clubs not on a dedicated platform is a Google Form plus a separate payment link, with a spreadsheet to track who’s paid. It works, but you’re reconciling two systems by hand — and at the end of a busy week, that’s the kind of thing that eats into someone’s Sunday evening.
For clubs already on TeamFeePay, payments run through the same setup as your membership and match fees. No separate merchant account, no second tool to learn, and your treasurer has a single view of who’s paid and who hasn’t — in real time.
Before you open bookings, get these four things decided:
Refund policy — the most common source of parent complaints after a camp. Decide upfront: full refund up to 14 days out? Credit towards the next camp? No refunds after a cut-off? Write it down and include it on the registration page. It protects the club and sets clear expectations.
Sibling discounts — a small gesture that goes a long way with families running two or three kids through a camp. A flat £5–£10 off per additional sibling is straightforward to administer and easy for parents to understand.
Early-bird pricing — incentivises parents to commit early, which gives you a clearer picture of numbers before you’ve confirmed coaches and equipment. Set a deadline — a fortnight or a month out — and stick to it.
Capacity — set a firm cap before you go live. Overselling creates problems on the day that are hard to recover from. Decide whether you’ll run a waiting list and make that visible on the registration page too.
Coordinating Volunteers and Coaches
Most camps run with a small core team of paid coaches and volunteer support. A typical staffing structure looks like this:
- Camp manager — overall lead, first point of contact for parents and the person everyone looks to when something goes wrong
- Lead coaches — plan and deliver the sessions, responsible for the quality of the football
- Assistant coaches — support on the pitch, help manage age groups and keep sessions running to time
- Welfare officer — safeguarding lead on site, named to parents before the camp starts
- First aider — qualified, present for the full day, every day
- Registration and admin — manages sign-in and sign-out, handles parent queries on arrival and pick-up
Most national FAs recommend coach-to-player ratios of around 1:8 for under-8s and 1:12 for older age groups. Your county FA may set tighter requirements — worth confirming before you finalise your numbers.
Brief your whole team before camp week — schedule, safeguarding responsibilities, late pick-up procedure and weather contingency. The more clarity they have before day one, the less you’re firefighting during it. A short pre-camp briefing, even 30 minutes, is worth doing.
TeamFeePay’s Volunteer Management tool keeps your coaching and volunteer records in one place — roles, contact details, DBS status and availability — so you’re not chasing information across spreadsheets and WhatsApp threads when camp week arrives.
Your Pre-Camp Checklist
Pre-camp checklist
Before bookings open
- Camp dates, capacity and pricing confirmed
- Pitch or facility booked
- Coaches and volunteers confirmed
- Background checks completed for all staff (DBS, AccessNI or Garda Vetting)
- Designated welfare officer appointed
- Safeguarding training records up to date
- Public liability and event insurance confirmed
- Registration page live and shared with members
Before camp week
- Medical and consent information collected
- Risk assessment completed
- First-aid coverage confirmed
- Parent welcome email drafted and scheduled
- Daily attendance register prepared
- Incident and accident forms ready
A well-run camp brings new members through the gate, generates income outside the season, and strengthens your club’s place in the community. The second one is always easier than the first — once your registration page, parent comms and treasurer process are in place, next year is largely a matter of changing the dates.
Already with TeamFeePay? The camps and tournaments booker is part of your subscription. Speak to your account manager and they’ll help you set up your first camp page.
Not on TeamFeePay yet? TeamFeePay is the membership and match fees platform built for grassroots clubs across the UK and Ireland — with camps, tournaments, parent comms and treasurer reporting all in one place.
Ready to Run Your Summer Camp Without the Admin Headache? Let's Talk.
FAQs
How much does it cost to run a football summer camp?
Costs vary depending on your setup, but a typical 3-day grassroots football summer camp with 100 players carries estimated costs of £2,650–£3,450. That covers pitch hire, coach pay, equipment, trophies, certificates, first aid supplies and insurance. At £60 per player, that generates £6,000 in income, leaving a profit of £2,550–£3,350.
How many coaches do I need for a kids football camp?
It depends on your age groups. For a camp of 100 players split across ages 6–8 and ages 9–12, you’ll need around 10 coaches in total. Your team should include a designated Camp Lead, a Welfare Officer and at least one First Aid qualified coach.
What safeguarding do I need in place for a football summer camp?
At a minimum you’ll need DBS checked staff across your coaching team, a designated Welfare Officer on site, a First Aider present at all times, a sign-in and sign-out system for every session, and emergency contact and medical information collected for every participant. TeamFeePay collects emergency contact and medical information as part of the registration process, so it’s ready before your camp starts.
How do I take payments for a football summer camp?
The cleanest approach is online payment collected upfront at the point of registration: parents pay when they sign up, money goes straight to your club account, and your treasurer has a real-time view of who’s paid. The alternative is a Google Form plus a separate payment link with a spreadsheet to reconcile the two, which works but creates unnecessary admin. TeamFeePay’s Camps Booker handles registration and payment in a single flow.
Can I run more than one camp at a time on TeamFeePay?
Yes. Each camp or tournament gets its own dashboard, registration link and payment setup, so there’s no crossover between events.
Do I need technical skills to set up a camp on TeamFeePay?
No. You add your event details, set your ticket types and prices, and share your registration link. The whole setup can be done in an afternoon with no technical background needed. TeamFeePay’s Club Support team are also on hand if you need help.
By Eve Watton, Digital Marketing Executive at TeamFeePay | Published 17.6.26 | Last updated 17.6.26