WhatsApp is great for friends. Is it right for running your club?

Most clubs start with a WhatsApp group because it is free and everyone already has it. Before it becomes the way your club communicates, it is worth thinking carefully about what you are taking on.

This is not a case against WhatsApp for chatting with friends. It is a look at what changes when a club, with its members, its juniors, its volunteers, and its legal responsibilities, relies on a personal messaging app. connectMyClub chat groups are built to do the club part of that job.

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Six things to think about

These are the points worth talking through before a WhatsApp group becomes your club's main channel.

Everyone can see everyone's number

In an ordinary WhatsApp group, members can generally see each other's phone numbers. For a new member, a junior's parent, or someone who only wants the announcements, that is a lot to hand over just to join. The club is responsible for the personal data it asks members to share.

Membership changes, the group doesn't

New members are added by hand, and someone always gets missed. People who have left, lapsed, or been removed can stay in the group and keep reading. With connectMyClub, chat access follows club membership, training groups, and events, so the right people are in the room without anyone updating a list.

Safeguarding is hard to evidence

Governing-body guidance is clear that clubs need control over how adults communicate with under-18s. In a personal app, the club has no club-level controls for juniors, no guardian link, and no record that the policy was followed. See what the guidance says below.

The group lives on one person's phone

If the admin changes phone, falls out with the club, or moves away, the history, the membership list, and sometimes the whole group go with them. connectMyClub chat belongs to the club, not to an individual.

Important notices get buried

"Tonight's session is cancelled" lands between a joke and a photo, and half the group misses it. Chat is good for conversation. Cancellations, route changes, and deadlines need a channel that is read. connectMyClub keeps announcements, emails, push notifications, and chat separate, so each has its own job.

It is not connected to anything

A thumbs-up in WhatsApp is not a booking, an attendance record, or a payment. The conversation about a session, a race, or a social happens in one place, and the sign-up in another. With connectMyClub, the chat sits beside the thing it is about.

What governing-body guidance says

Sports safeguarding bodies have published specific guidance on messaging apps. These are the points most relevant to club chat groups.

UK Athletics: Social Media & Digital Communication Guidance for Clubs

Part of the UKA Safeguarding Toolkit (March 2023), which applies to affiliated athletics clubs. Among the guidelines for clubs communicating with children:

  • "Written permission must be sought from parents/carers to communicate with children under 18 years online and via social media," with the guidance adding a note about under 16s for WhatsApp groups.
  • "Parents should be copied into any messages their children are sent by the club."
  • Accounts "must be monitored by two designated club members appointed by the club committee," who should take advice from the club welfare officer.
  • Messages should be about club activities, and "the same standard message should be sent to every member of the group/team."
  • "One-to-one messaging arrangements between volunteers/staff and children is not permitted and would breach the UKA safeguarding policy and various codes of conduct."

Source: UKA Social Media and Digital Guidelines for Clubs (PDF).

NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit: Online safety and social media in sport

The CPSU provides safeguarding guidance and standards used across UK sport. Its guidance on messaging apps (last updated February 2025) says:

  • "Online messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp can pose an increased risk to young people," because private messages "could be used to bully or intimidate young people."
  • "Do not communicate with young people on a 1:1 basis using encrypted platforms," and "messages should never be sent privately by a staff member to a young person."
  • Where apps are used, messages should come from a business account "managed by trained staff" and be monitored regularly.
  • Clubs should set clear boundaries on how the apps can be used, and write them into the online safety and social media policy.

Source: CPSU, Online safety and social media in sport.

British Triathlon: Safeguarding and Protecting Children Policy

The section on communicating with children and young people covers mobile phones, text, and online messaging. Among its points for clubs:

  • Coaches and club officers should only hold children's contact details "if they have written permission from parents/carers."
  • Communication with children "should always be copied into a parent/carer" and be relevant to the sport.
  • Instead of holding children's details, coaches and officers can hold the parents' details and ask them to pass information on.
  • To contact a whole training group, clubs should consider a secure page "accessible to relevant individuals only," so that "no direct contact would be occurring."
  • Contact details held for a trip such as a training camp should be deleted afterwards.
  • Clubs should decide who can access what on social media, and consult the Club Welfare Officer.

Source: British Triathlon Safeguarding and Protecting Children Policy (PDF).

British Cycling: Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy and coaching advice

British Cycling's policy sets out the principles and points clubs to its good practice guidelines. Its coaching advice on social media goes further, and says the same care applies to text and instant messaging.

  • The policy says the "range of social networking sites also introduces a range of potential safeguarding risks to children and young people," and that staff, volunteers, officials, and coaches must follow best-practice guidelines.
  • It also warns that contacts "made within sport and pursued e.g. through texts, Facebook or Twitter have been used to groom children for abuse."
  • The coaching advice says "no private discussions should take place, particularly between an adult and a young rider," and recommends group channels instead.
  • It recommends copying in a third party such as a parent, the moderator, or the Club Welfare Officer, and says parents "should consent to and be aware that their children will be communicating with you through these tools."
  • Clubs with under-18 members must appoint a Club Welfare Officer.

Sources: British Cycling Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy 2024 (PDF) and Advice for coaches on using Social Media (an older article, so please check it is still current).

Other sports

Every sport has its own safeguarding policy and codes of conduct, and affiliated clubs are expected to follow them. If you are not sure what yours says about messaging apps, ask your club welfare officer or your governing body's safeguarding team. The common thread is control: the club should know who is communicating with juniors, and how.

What connectMyClub does and does not do. Our chat groups give the club the controls the guidance asks for: messaging is off by default for juniors, you can restrict which adults can message them, and chat access follows membership. They do not replace your safeguarding policy or your welfare officer. Your club still needs to decide who can message whom and make sure everyone knows the rules.

Guidance quoted was checked in October 2026. Governing bodies update their documents, so please check the sources for the current version.

WhatsApp group vs connectMyClub chat group

An honest side-by-side

What matters to a club connectMyClub WhatsApp
Privacy and membership
Members don't have to share their phone number to join
Group membership follows club membership, training groups, and events automatically
Chat history belongs to the club, not one person's phone
Safeguarding
Messaging off by default for junior members
Guardian-linked Accounts, so parents manage their child's membership
Club-level controls over which adults can message juniors, with an audit trail of changes
Joined up with the club
Chat rooms for training groups, team events, volunteer roles, committee, and leaders
Read receipts showing who has seen a message
Reactions, @mentions, image sharing, and editing or deleting messages
Everyday convenience
Already on members' phones, or available in any web browser
Voice and video calls
Free for any group, with no club set-up

WhatsApp's behaviour depends on app version and group settings, and is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing. Under-50-member clubs can use all connectMyClub features, including chat, free.

"But our members already use WhatsApp"

That is exactly why this is a gentle move, not a big switch.

  • Keep the banter where it is. A private group of friends who run together is fine on WhatsApp. The point is the official club channels: training, events, juniors, committee.
  • Start with one group. Turn on chat for a single training group or team event for a season and see how it goes.
  • Pin a message in the old group. Tell people where official club information will now live, so nothing is lost.
  • Members use the app they already use for the club. There is nothing extra to install for anyone using the connectMyClub app.

See club chat groups for yourself

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