Royal Dutch Football Association includes Kiwa's Safe Social Climate label in licence requirements for professional football

Scheme manager Anne van Diemen from Kiwa developed the Safe Social Climate label. She explains the added value of the label for sports clubs: "With the help of the quality label, there is a structural and independent assessment of whether a club has properly anchored the prevention of cross-border behaviour. Are there welfare officers, does everyone know how to find them, is it a topic of conversation and do they respond well to signals within the club? In addition to these preventive measures, it is important to properly identify and act on signals. By picking these up properly and recording measures, the requirements from the label offer the club the opportunity to learn continuously. A club can then work ever better at providing a safe environment for everyone!"

Policies around cross-border behaviour are often about what to do after an incident. When developing the label, Anne focused on prevention. She tells: "The label was indeed designed on the basis of a safety management system in which, in addition to a policy, protocols and acting on incidents, learning and improvement from all signals is addressed. Despite prevention, you can never completely prevent cross-border behaviour, so it is important to respond and learn from it quickly and properly. By setting up a safety management system, you include everyone in what it takes to be a safe club, where there is openness, where people look out for each other, where you can be who you are in order to create a safe social climate together."

On the basis of an annual audit, Kiwa plays an important role in checking whether clubs working with the quality label are doing so correctly. Anne explains: "As an independent party, Kiwa checks whether all preventive tasks have been carried out within a club and whether the right actions are taken when there are signs. In addition, Kiwa assesses whether the club is also learning and continuously improving. We assess whether the safety management system is running well. We visit the club for this purpose. We are independent assessors who look together with the clubs to see how they can improve on a safe social climate."

Any imperfections uncovered during the audit are reported to the KNVB licensing committee. This can draw up an improvement plan with the relevant professional football club and provide support in this if necessary.

When is an audit according to the label's requirements successful? Anne tells: "When the club meets the requirements and the topic of cross-border behaviour is known to everyone and openly discussed within a club. When everyone is aware that creating a safe climate within the club is everyone's job and responsibility."

According Marianne van Leeuwen, director of professional football KNVB, it is imperative that there is a safe environment for everyone working in professional football. She explains: “The prevention of cross-border behaviour is very important to us and that is partly why there is a licence requirement on this. We are very pleased that Kiwa is going to support our members meeting the requirements of the Safe Social Climate label. In this way, clubs will learn to better recognise signs of cross-border behaviour and to better guide people involved.”

A sports federation can motivate its members, the sports clubs, to set up a safety management system precisely on the tricky issue of cross-border behaviour. They can also encourage clubs to obtain the label to show that they are continuously working on a safe social climate. The label provides sports clubs with tools to do everything in their power to tackle cross-border behaviour and ensure safety. Would you like to know more about the Safe Social Climate label that Kiwa helped develop? Check out the Kiwa Netherlands' website or contact us for more information.