Last updated August 2026
This privacy notice explains what personal data we collect from or about you.
It sets out why we collect, use, and protect your personal data, and what rights you have over that data.
The data controller responsible in accordance with the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and other data protection regulations is:
Recreational Sporting Ltd ("we", "us", "our") trading as PlayFootball.
Registered Address:
Building 2, Guildford Business Park,
Guildford Business Park Road,
Guildford, GU2 8JZ
Website: www.playfootball.net
Email address: privacy.officer@playfootball.net
The contact details for our Data Protection Officer are as follows:
By post: DataCo International UK Limited
Suite 1, 7th Floor 50 Broadway
London
United Kingdom
SW1H 0BL
By email: privacy@dataguard.co.uk
By phone: +442035146557
We are the controller of the personal data we process. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we collect, use and store information about you.
Depending on the specific service you use and how it is delivered, we may act as a sole controller, joint controller, or independent controller alongside third parties. Where joint controllership applies, this is explained clearly in the relevant section below.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under number: ZB270252.
How we collect and use your personal data will depend on how you interact with us or the services you use. To better understand how we use your data, please review the role below that best describes you.
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device, such as your computer, phone or tablet, when you view pages on our website. These cookies allow us to track some of your browsing preferences and optimise how our website works.
While we are not looking to identify you using cookies as the focus on your device, it may be possible for us to identify you or infer information about you. Unless the cookies are “strictly necessary” to make our website function, we will ask for your consent before they are placed on your device.
For more information on the cookies we use, please read our cookie notice.
Purpose
To deliver the newsletter to the recipient
Personal data processed
Email address, First name
Legal basis
Consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) UK GDPR)
Retention period
As long as the newsletter subscription is active
A contact form is available on our website, which can be used for electronic contact. If you make use of this option, the data entered in the contact form will be transmitted to us and stored.
Purpose
To establish contact
Personal data processed
Email address, First name, Last name, Phone Number, Date and time
Legal basis
Legitimate interest (Art. 6 (1) (f) UK GDPR) to establish contact with those who submit their queries
Retention period
Until the respective conversation with the user has ended. The conversation ends when it can be inferred from the circumstances that the facts in question have been conclusively clarified.
Processing of customer data for the purpose of processing and fulfilling online purchases made via the website, including order confirmation, delivery, invoicing, and potential follow-up communication related to the transaction.
Purpose
Processing and fulfilling online purchases made via the website, including managing online bookings, delivering services, customer support, and related administrative activities
Personal data processed
First and last name, Billing and delivery address, Email address (used for a contact and account/booking identification), Phone number (Used for booking related communication), Booking details, Payment details.
Legal basis
Contract performance (Art. 6 (1) (b) UK GDPR) – for processing strictly necessary to complete the booking/ purchase (e.g., booking creation, confirmation, service delivery).
Compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 6 (1) (c) UK GDPR) – for retaining transaction records for accounting and tax purposes. Legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1)(f) UK GDPR) – for necessary operational activities related to bookings, including customer service communications, account management, and service administration, where these are not strictly required to perform the contract and are not overridden by individual’s rights.
Retention period
Stored for 6 years after the end of the fiscal year in which the transaction took place, in line with statutory retention requirements for business records and taxation.
Processing of player data for the purpose of organising, administering, and operating football leagues, including team management, match recording, and compliance with governing body requirements.
Purpose
To organise and manage league participation, including team allocation, communication, match administration, recording results, managing disciplinary processes, and complying with applicable governing body requirements.
Personal data processed
Player name, Contact details (email, phone number), Team allocation data, Match statistics, Attendance records, Disciplinary records.
Legal basis
Contract performance (Art. 6 (1) (b) UK GDPR) – where an individual enters into a contract directly with us, (e.g., Booking or payment for league participation);
Compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 6 (1) (c) UK GDPR) – where we are required to retain certain records for financial, regulatory, or governing body compliance purposes. Legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) (f) UK GDPR) – to organise and operate football leagues, including managing fixtures, recording results, administrating teams, and ensuring effective delivery of league services.
Retention period
Personal data is retained for 6 years counting from the beginning of participation in a league:
(i) to manage and resolve disputes and legal claims;
(ii) to comply with statutory accounting requirements.
We process personal information relating to referees, league coordinators and other match officials to organise and administer our football leagues, fixtures and events. This includes managing engagements, availability, fixture allocations, operational communications, match administration, match reporting, score submissions and payment administration.
Purpose
1) To administer referee, league coordinator and match official engagements in connection with PlayFootball leagues, fixtures and events, including fixture allocation, operational communications, match administration, match reporting, score submissions, payment administration
2) For the purposes of establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, dispute resolution and complaint investigation.
Personal data processed
Name, email address, mobile telephone number, availability information, engagement status, assignment and scheduling information, fixture allocation history, match reporting information, score submission information, payment entitlement information and payment-related information, including bank account details where required for payment administration.
Legal basis
Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR: Legitimate Interests in operating and administering our football leagues, fixtures and events, including managing and remunerating the officials needed to deliver those services.
Retention period
We keep your personal data for the duration of your engagement with us. Where your personal data is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, resolve disputes, investigate complaints – we keep it for up to 6 years after the engagement ends.
When you make or receive a phone call, your call is recorded and supported by AI systems.
How calls are handled:
Your Choices and Rights
You have the right to object to the use of AI systems in handling your call and to the recording or processing of your data in this way.
If you wish to object:
We will always honour your rights under data protection law, including your right to object to the use of your personal data in AI‑supported services.
Purpose
Personal data processed
Call recordings, phone number, call metadata (date and time of the call, duration, and routing information), communication content, interaction history
Legal basis
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) – providing customer support and managing communications; improving service quality; dispute handling
Retention period
For the purposes “to provide customer support and manage communications” and “to monitor service quality” personal data will be stored for
6 months counting from the date of the call. For the purpose “to handle disputes” personal data will be stored for 6 years counting from the date of the call (as per the statute of limitation period).
When you submit a web enquiry or contact form, your enquiry is supported by AI systems.
How enquiries are handled:
Purpose
Personal data processed
Name, contact details, enquiry content, communication history, metadata (request date and time)
Legal basis
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) – responding to enquiries and improving customer support, monitoring service quality, improving website users’ navigation
Retention period
Enquiry data is retained for up to 12 months from the closure of the enquiry.
We may collect images or recordings where individuals appear in photography, video, or drone footage for promotional, operational, and event‑related purposes.
Purpose
To promote services, share event highlights, support marketing campaigns, and document activities.
Personal data processed
Images, video recordings, drone footage.
Legal basis
Consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) UK GDPR)
Retention period
Raw footage / unedited content: Retained for 12 months to allow for content review, editing, and selection.
Final approved content: Retained for the duration of the relevant campaign and for up to 5 years thereafter to support ongoing promotion, evidencing marketing activity, and maintaining a historical record of events and services.
Processing of personal data for the purpose of sending offers, promotions, and updates.
Purpose
To send marketing communications, promotions, and service updates selected to be useful and relevant.
Personal data processed
Name, email address, phone number, marketing preferences, service usage history.
Legal basis
Consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) UK GDPR) – where you have opted in to receive marketing communications.
Retention period
We review marketing consent regularly and remove data where consent is withdrawn, expires, or becomes invalid, including prolonged inactivity.
We process personal data relating to individuals who work for, represent, or are associated with our client partners, venue partners, prospective partners.
Purpose
To establish, manage and maintain business relationships with client partners and venue partners, evaluate partnership opportunities and communicate regarding operational matters.
Personal data processed
Name, job title, organisation name, business email address, business telephone number,, business correspondence, , records of communications, contract information and relationship management records.
Legal basis
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) – to manage commercial relationships, administer partner venues, provide access to venue-related information, operate services and conduct our business effectively. Contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b) UK GDPR) where an individual acts as a sole trader or enters directly into a contract with us. Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) UK GDPR) where we are required to retain information for accounting, taxation, regulatory or legal purposes.
Retention period
Business relationship records are retained for the duration of the relationship and for up to 6 years thereafter where required to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, exercise legal rights and maintain appropriate business records.
Access to booking information
Venue partners may be provided with access to booking information relating to activities taking place at their venue where necessary to support operations and service delivery. This includes customer names, booking details, attendance information and other relevant operational information. For further information on data sharing, please refer to Section, Who Is the Information Shared With?
On our company profile we provide information and offer Meta, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) users the possibility of communication.
If you carry out an action on our company profile (e.g. comments, contributions, likes etc.), you may make personal data (name, photo of your user profile, any other data you made available in your profile) public. However, as we generally or to a large extent have no influence on the processing of your personal data by Instagram, we cannot make any binding statements regarding the purpose and scope of the processing of your data. Our corporate profile in social networks is used for communication and information exchange with (potential) customers.
Every user is free to publish personal data. As far as we process your personal data in order to evaluate your online behaviour, to offer you sweepstakes or to conduct lead campaigns, this is done on the basis of your express declaration of consent, Art. 6 (1) (a) of the UK GDPR. The legal basis for processing personal data for the purpose of communicating with customers and interested parties is Art. 6 (1) (f) UK GDPR. Thereby, our legitimate interest is to answer your request optimally or to be able to provide the requested information. If the aim of contacting you is to conclude a contract, the additional legal basis for the processing is Art. 6 (1) (b) UK GDPR.
The data generated on the company profile are not stored in our own systems.
You can object at any time to the processing of your personal data that we collect within the framework of your use of our corporate web profiles and assert your rights as a data subject mentioned the "Your rights" section of this privacy policy. Please send us an informal email to privacy@dataguard.co.uk.
For further information on the processing of your personal data by Instagram, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) and the corresponding objection options, please click here:
We use corporate profiles on professionally oriented networks.
We maintain a corporate presence on the following professionally oriented networks:
On our site we provide information and offer users the possibility of communication. The corporate profile is used for job applications, information, public relations, and active sourcing. Further information can be found in the privacy policy of LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
Every user is free to publish personal data. If you carry out an action on our company profile (e.g. comments, contributions, likes etc.), you may make personal data (e.g. clear identifier; full name or photo of your user profile) public.
Purpose
To inform users about our services
Personal data processed
Name, photo of your user profile, any other data you made available in your profile
Legal basis
Legitimate interest (Art. 6 (1) (f) UK GDPR) to answer your request optimally or to be able to provide the requested information
Retention period
The data resulted from you carrying out an action on our company profile (e.g. comments, contributions, likes etc.) will be stored as part of our LinkedIn corporate profile until the profile is deleted. We do not store this data in our own systems beyond LinkedIn environment.
We are only able to use your personal data when the law allows us to. This is called the legal basis. Regarding the above purposes, the legal basis listed for each are explained below:
Consent – You have given us your consent to process your personal data for the specific purpose we have explained to you. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. To do so please contact us or the Data Protection Officer via the details supplied below.
Contract – We need to use your data to fulfil a contract you have with us. Alternatively, it’s necessary to use your data because we have asked you to, or you have taken yourself, specific steps before entering that contract.
Legal Obligation – We need to use your data to comply with the law.
Vital interests – Where it is necessary to protect someone’s life (for example, sharing medical or emergency contact details with emergency services)
Legitimate Interests – Processing your data is necessary to support a legitimate interest we or another party has, only where this is not outweighed by your own interests.
You can find out more about legal basis by accessing the UK Information Commissioner’s Office’s guidance here.
Unless specified otherwise in this Privacy Notice, the provision of personal data is not a statutory or contractual requirement. It means that you are not obliged to provide personal data. The consequence of failure to provide personal data would be inability to achieve our designated purpose.
Third Party Service Providers within our website.
As with most organisations, we use service providers to help us maintain our website, deliver our services and keep your data secure. When we use these service providers, it is necessary for us to share your personal data with them. We have agreements in place with all our providers that oblige them to protect your data.
Third Party Cookie Providers
When you browse our website, certain data may be collected through cookies or other tracking technologies. Where required, this occurs based on your prior consent. Some of these cookies are provided by third-party service providers that support us in various areas, such as:
As a result, certain data may be shared with these third-party providers. We have data processing agreements in place with all third-party providers to ensure that your personal data is handled securely and in accordance with data protection regulations.
For more information on the cookies we use, please read our cookie notice.
Third Party Links
Our website includes links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notices. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of each website you visit.
Data Transfers outside the UK
Where we transfer your personal data outside the UK, we will ensure that it continues to receive a level of protection consistent with UK data protection law. This may be achieved in one of the following ways:
You have the right to obtain a copy of the safeguards we use for transfers outside the UK. Please contact us (see the “Who we are” section above for contact details) if you wish to receive further information.
Under data protection legislation, in certain circumstances you have the following rights over the processing of your personal data as described in this notice:
In most cases, we must respond to a request to exercise these rights within one month. If you would like to submit a request, please contact us (see the ‘Who we are’ section above for contact details).
If you believe that we have processed your personal data in a way that does not comply with data protection law, you may make a complaint directly to us.
Complaints can be submitted to privacy.officer@playfootball.net. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receipt. We will take appropriate steps to investigate and respond to it, may contact you for further information where needed, will keep you informed as appropriate, and will notify you of the outcome without undue delay.
If you are dissatisfied with how we have handled your complaint, you may also raise the matter with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):
By post: Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
By phone: +44303 123 1113
Via ICO website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/