If you coach junior football in Wales, you've already had this conversation. It's halftime, your squad of 14 is huddled under an umbrella in Bangor, you're trying to remember who came on at minute 12 and who's been on the bench since the start, and somewhere in the back of your mind a quiet voice is reminding you that the FAW expects every kid to play at least 50% of this game.
Welsh grassroots is structurally different from English grassroots — and the playing-time rule is the most obvious place that bites. The English FA talks about a "fair share over the season." The FAW is stricter: every player, every match, no less than half.
This post is a practical system for actually doing it on the day, plus the bit of the FAW regulations you'll want to be able to quote when a parent or a league rep asks. None of this is legal advice — check the FAW handbook if you're unsure — but this is the working approach I use.
What the FAW rule actually says
The FAW's Small-Sided & Junior Football Regulations 2024-25 set the bar clearly:
- Every squad member named on the matchday team sheet must play at least 50% of the match.
- For U11 and below, every squad member must experience all positions, including goalkeeper, across the season.
That's the rule in 35 words. It applies to mini football and junior football across Welsh leagues, and it sits inside the FAW's wider push to make grassroots more inclusive, more developmental, and less about Saturday-morning scoreboard chasing.
For comparison, the English FA's Youth Football guidance asks for a "meaningful share of playing time over the season" — softer, harder to audit, and easier to fudge if you're under pressure to win. The FAW chose the harder line on purpose.
Why it's harder than it sounds
"Just play everyone for half the match" sounds trivial until you sit down with a squad of 14 and 60 minutes of football. Some practical realities:
- You can't half-and-half it. If your squad is bigger than 2 × your on-pitch number, simple half-time mass swaps don't work. With 9 on the pitch and 14 in the squad, 5 players need rolling subs across the game.
- Goalkeepers count. A 30-minute keeper shift is not equivalent to a 30-minute outfield shift, but it still counts as playing time. You need a plan for keeper rotation that doesn't accidentally leave someone with 30 minutes in goal and 0 minutes outfield.
- Squad size changes weekly. Some weeks you've got 11, some you've got 16. The "everyone gets 50%" rule means more bench players → more rotation pressure → more chance of forgetting who's behind.
- The match clock keeps moving. While you're trying to do the maths, the game is still happening.
This is exactly the problem that catches good Welsh coaches out — not because they don't care, but because the cognitive load on a wet matchday is real.
The matchday system
Here's the system I use. It works on paper. It works much better with an app.
Before kick-off: print the floor and the ceiling
Take your matchday squad size. Multiply your total match minutes by 0.5 — that's the floor every player needs to hit. Then subtract that from the total match minutes — that's the ceiling beyond which a player on the pitch from kick-off shouldn't go without a break.
For a 60-minute game with 14 players:
- Floor: 30 minutes (every player must hit this)
- Ceiling: 30 minutes (no starter goes more than this without a rest)
The two numbers are coincidentally identical at squad-of-14-on-a-60-min-game. Different squad / different match length, they drift apart. Either way, write them on a piece of card and put it in your pocket.
During the match: rolling subs every 5-10 minutes
The FAW format allows rolling subs (unlike the FA's traditional matchday in some competitions). Use them.
A good rhythm: a sub every 5–10 minutes once you're past the opening 10. The kid coming on is whichever bench player has the fewest minutes so far. The kid coming off is whichever pitch player has the most.
This sounds like a lot. It's not. You're swapping one player every 5–10 minutes — usually two or three subs per half — and the maths is trivial if you keep a running tally.
Goalkeepers: separate currency
For U11 and below, the FAW also requires every squad member to experience the keeper position across the season. Don't try to make that happen on a single matchday — that's how you accidentally give one kid 30 minutes in goal and another 0 minutes anywhere.
Instead, plan keeper shifts across the season. Pick two matches per term per kid for the keeper rotation. Tell the parents in advance so nobody's surprised. On the day, the keeper shift counts towards their 50% floor.
After the match: log the minutes
After full-time, before you forget, write down how long each kid played. You'll use this for two reasons:
- To check you actually hit the 50% rule for everyone (audit-proofing)
- To track the U11 position-rotation rule across the season
A notebook is fine. A spreadsheet is better. An app does it for you.
How Squadd helps
Squadd has a dedicated fair-play mode that's basically designed for the FAW rule. When you switch it on:
- Live per-player minutes — the app counts every player's match minutes in real time as the game is played. You always know who's behind.
- Suggested fair-play sub — at any point in the match, Squadd will tell you which bench player to bring on and which pitch player to bring off, based on actual minutes played so far. Goalkeepers are deliberately excluded so the GK isn't swapped by mistake. One tap to accept and the substitution is logged as a match event.
- Playing-time warning — if a squad member is on course to fall below their minutes threshold for the match, Squadd flags it while you've still got time to put them on. This is the bit that prevents the "I forgot Hannah was on the bench all match" disaster.
Around that, the usual squad-management bits that take the pre-match faff off your plate:
- Availability with automatic 24-hour reminders so you know by Friday night who's coming
- Squad publishing so parents see "in" or "out" without a group chat
- Match events automatically recorded so you've got a record of who came on and when
Honest disclosure: Squadd doesn't yet auto-track the U11 keeper-rotation rule across the season, and it doesn't yet sort your squad by season minutes on the lineup-build screen. Both are on the roadmap. For the keeper rotation, you'll currently want a simple list in your phone notes. The in-match 50% rule, though — that's exactly what the app is for.
The parent conversation
Even with a transparent system, you'll occasionally get pushback from a parent. The FAW rule is your best ally:
"Welsh FA rules say every player has to play at least 50% of every match. So Charlie is going to come off sometimes — same as Harry and same as Jack — to make sure everyone hits that minimum. Happy to show you the minutes log if you'd like to see how it's working out across the season."
This is much harder to argue with than "I felt this was fair." The rule isn't yours — it's the FAW's.
What the FAW doesn't require
To save you stress, the FAW rule is not:
- Strict equal time (you don't have to give everyone exactly 30 minutes — just at least 30)
- Equal positions per match (the position-rotation rule is across the season, not per game)
- A written justification for any deviation (the 50% floor is the audit standard)
If you're hitting the 50% floor for every squad member, you've met the rule. Anything above that is coaching judgement.
TL;DR
- The FAW's rule is per-match, not per-season — minimum 50% playing time for every squad member, every game.
- U11 and below also have to experience all positions including keeper across the season.
- The simplest in-match system: rolling subs every 5–10 minutes, fewest-minutes player on, most-minutes player off.
- Plan keeper shifts across the season; don't try to fit them into a single matchday.
- Log minutes after every match so you can prove compliance if asked.
Squadd's fair-play mode handles the live in-match minutes tracking and the sub suggestions automatically — useful specifically for Welsh coaches because the 50% rule leaves no room to wing it. The 4-week free trial covers a full month of fixtures.