Important Update Regarding Refunds for Spring Football
Dear Parent/Guardian;
In response to the Government of BC’s state of emergency declaration and in order to help protect our players, coaches and football families from the COVID-19 outbreak, the leagues and governing bodies have made the difficult decision to cancel all spring football programs.
The spring registrations fees collected by football clubs includes insurance and other levies which are collected for each player during the player registration process. These fees are:
BCCFA Membership/Coach Development - $20
BCPFA Membership/insurance - $23
Football Canada Membership - $15
These fees/levies are not normally refundable. However, the governing bodies and clubs have developed a temporary refund policy to reflect the extraordinary circumstances created by the outbreak of COVID-19:
For Spring Program Registrations Paid on or after February 1 st , 2020
All player registration fees, membership dues and insurance costs submitted through the ESportsDesk registration platform on or after February 1 st , 2020 will be refunded less the credit card/interac processing fee. The net amount will be refunded to the original method of payment by E-SportsDesk.
For Spring Program Registrations Paid for between January 1 st , 2020 and January 31 st , 2020
All player registration fees, membership dues and insurance costs submitted through the ESportsDesk registration platform between January 1 st , 2020 and January 31 st , 2020 will be refunded less the credit card/interac processing fee. The refund will be issued by the player’s club with whom the registration was placed. The cheque will be made payable to the person who paid the original payment. Please note, the governing bodies and E-SportsDesk need to refund their portion of the fees directly to the clubs and this step needs to be completed before the clubs can issue the refund.
Please note, these revised refund policies do not apply to players who registered and participated in programs that took place in January and February (e.g. camps, clinics, etc.).
Next Steps
As the first step in the process, each club is being asked to provide E-SportsDesk, BCCFA and the BCPFA with a list of player registrations that are to be refunded. Once received, E-SportsDesk will review the original transaction for each participant (from February and March) and initiate a refund to the original method of payment (less credit card processing fees). The governing bodies (BCPFA, BCCFA, and Football Canada) are working directly with E-Sports Desk and the clubs to ensure these refunds happen as soon as possible. However, we anticipate that it will take several weeks to issue the refunds due to the high volume of transactions and current working environment for E-SportsDesk created by the outbreak of COVID19.
For player registrations that took place in January, the three governing bodies and E-SportsDesk will use the same club list to issue a refund of their respective fees directly to each club. Once a club has received the funds from all four organizations (BCCFA, BCPFA, Football Canada, ESportsDesk), the club will be able to issue a refund by cheque to each recipient. IMPORTANT: Please login to your E-SportsDesk account to ensure the main address on your account is up to date as it will be this address used for mailing the refund.
For the fall season, the governing bodies and clubs will be working together to offer a “waitlist” style registration that will only require payment once we have confirmed that the season can start. We encourage all families to follow your clubs and governing bodies for all the latest news and updates on these important changes.
Looking Forward
We hope that programming will be back in place in the near future and we can go back to playing the game we all love! Most importantly: We hope that all families are keeping themselves safe and healthy. Let’s do our part to get through this extraordinary period. We will get through this together!
On behalf of all the stakeholders,
Keith Ryan
Executive Director
British Columbia Provincial Football Association
If you have any questions, please contact:
Question about the policy: BCPFA executivedirector@bcpfa.com
Questions about the actual refund: Club Registrar/President/Treasurer
