Club partner agreement

Between PlayNow Ltd and your club

Last updated: 12 August 2026

v1.1 — prepared without external counsel; review recommended

Who this agreement is between

This agreement is between:

• PlayNow Ltd ("PlayNow", "we", "us"), a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17390200, registered office 1B Monson Road, London NW10 5UR, contact hello@playnowclub.co.uk; and
• your club ("the club", "you") — the organisation named in your PlayNow account.

By signing up for a PlayNow account and activating your club, you agree to this agreement on behalf of the club. The person accepting confirms they have authority to bind the club.

This agreement includes Schedule 1 (Data processing terms), which forms part of it.

1. What PlayNow provides

PlayNow is software for running a grassroots children's sports club. Depending on your tier, the service includes:

• Registration. Parents register a child with your club using your join code; your club reviews and approves each registration.
• Payments. Parents pay your club for membership, kit and fees by card or Direct Debit, through your club's own Stripe account (see section 4). Klarna is offered at every checkout as a payment option; whether Klarna offers a plan to a particular family is Klarna's decision alone (see section 5).
• Member records. Child details, medical information and emergency contacts, held with the protections described in Schedule 1.
• Staff pay records. Staff submit timesheets; your club admins approve them and record what your club has paid (see section 8).
• Club administration. Seasons, catalogue items, audit trail, and the other features described on our website.

Tiers, and what each tier includes, are as published on our pricing page at playnowclub.co.uk/pricing. We may improve the service at any time; we will not materially reduce what your tier includes during a paid period without 30 days' notice.

2. Fees

You pay PlayNow two things:

1. A monthly subscription for your tier, billed by PlayNow to the club and collected by Bacs Direct Debit. Your subscription payments are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee.
2. An application fee on each parent payment taken through the service — a flat percentage that depends on your tier, deducted automatically at settlement (see section 4).

The rates for both are those published on our pricing page at the time of the transaction. We may change published rates by giving you at least 30 days' notice. If you do not accept a change, you may terminate under section 10 before it takes effect; continuing to use the service after the notice period means you accept the new rates.

The prices on our pricing page are the amounts your club pays. If we become required to charge VAT, we will give you at least 30 days' notice.

3. Your Stripe account

To take payments, your club must open and maintain a Stripe Express account, which PlayNow helps you set up. Your use of Stripe is also governed by Stripe's own agreements, which you accept directly with Stripe during onboarding.

4. You are the merchant of record

This section matters. Please read it carefully.

Parent payments are created on your club's own Stripe account, not on PlayNow's. That means:

• The money is yours from the start. Parents' payments settle to your Stripe account and are paid out to your club bank account. Parents' money never passes through PlayNow's balance.
• You are the merchant of record. The payment relationship is between your club and the parent. Your club is responsible for delivering what was paid for.
• Refunds are your decision. Refunds of club fees are made by your club, under your club's own refund policy. Nothing in your policy can reduce a consumer's statutory rights (including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015), and nothing in this agreement overrides the Direct Debit Guarantee or a cardholder's chargeback rights.
• Disputes and chargebacks are your responsibility. If a parent disputes a payment, the dispute is against your club's account, and any resulting refund, reversal or dispute fee is borne by your club.
• Stripe bills you for processing. Stripe's processing fees on parent payments are charged to your club's account, at the rates in your agreement with Stripe.
• You authorise our application fee. You authorise PlayNow to deduct its application fee (section 2) from each parent payment at settlement, as a Stripe application fee. Your Stripe statement will show both Stripe's processing fee and PlayNow's application fee as separate deductions.

PlayNow never withholds your settled money. Parents' money that has reached your account is yours. If your club owes PlayNow a subscription payment, we will pursue that as a debt (see section 9) — we will never take it from, or delay, money parents have paid you.

5. Klarna

Klarna appears as a payment option at every checkout; it is part of the service and cannot be switched off per club. Klarna is the lender: it sets its own terms, runs its own eligibility checks, and decides for itself whether to offer a plan to a particular family. PlayNow does not provide, arrange or advise on credit, and takes no commission from Klarna.

6. The indemnity — negative balances on your Stripe account

This clause is the reason this agreement exists as a formal contract, so we state it plainly rather than burying it.

Because your club is the merchant of record, refunds, chargebacks and disputes are charged to your club's Stripe account. If your account does not hold enough money to cover them, it goes into a negative balance. Under Stripe's rules for Express accounts, if a connected account's negative balance is not repaid, Stripe may recover the shortfall from PlayNow as the platform.

You therefore agree that:

• You will keep your account funded. Your club is responsible for repaying any negative balance on its Stripe account promptly.
• You will repay us what Stripe recovers from us. If Stripe recovers from PlayNow any amount arising from a negative balance on your club's account — including disputed payments, refunds, reversals and associated dispute fees — your club will reimburse PlayNow that amount in full, within 30 days of our written request. We will give you a breakdown of what was recovered and why.

This indemnity covers only money Stripe actually recovers from PlayNow because of your account, plus our reasonable costs of recovering it from you if you do not pay when asked. It does not cover PlayNow's own losses from anything else, and it does not apply to the extent the shortfall was caused by PlayNow's own breach of this agreement or negligence.

This obligation survives termination of this agreement.

7. Your responsibilities

Member data. Your club is the controller of the member records collected through the service — child details, medical information, emergency contacts. You are responsible for having a lawful basis for collecting and using that data, for the accuracy of what your club enters, and for responding to your members' data rights requests (we will help, as set out in Schedule 1).

Safeguarding and DBS checks. Safeguarding is, and remains, your club's responsibility. PlayNow does not run, see or verify DBS checks. The service keeps a diary of check dates and levels as attested by your club — never certificate numbers or results. Any renewal date shown is derived from the check date your club entered, applying your governing body's renewal policy — it is not a fact about the certificate, which has no expiry. Recording a date in PlayNow is not a safeguarding decision and does not transfer any safeguarding obligation to PlayNow.

Staff pay. PlayNow records amounts due, reveals bank details to your authorised admins (every reveal is audit-logged), exports a bank payment file, and records your club's attestation that payment was made. PlayNow never initiates, routes or holds staff payments. Paying your staff — and everything that goes with it, including tax, employment status and payroll obligations — is your club's responsibility. The engagement type of each staff member (employed, self-employed or volunteer) is attested by your club; PlayNow does not determine or validate it.

Accuracy and lawful use. You will keep your account details accurate, use the service only for running your club, and not use it in a way that is unlawful or that harms other users of the platform.

8. Staff pay records

For clarity, the staff pay features are records only: pay records, not payroll. Amounts recorded for volunteers are expenses. Bank details are encrypted at rest, masked by default, and revealed only to authorised club admins with every reveal logged. The bank payment file export is available to your club's super admin only and writes its own audit entry.

9. Non-payment: read-only, never dark

If your club's subscription payment fails, we will tell your treasurer and Stripe will retry the collection on its own schedule. If the debt remains unpaid, we may place your account in a billing lock. A billing lock is deliberately limited:

• Everything can still be read. Members, money, timesheets, medical records and emergency contacts remain accessible. A child's medical information is never collateral in a billing dispute.
• Parents are unaffected. Registration and parent payments continue — blocking them would punish families and cut off the income that pays your invoice.
• Coaches are unaffected. Staff can continue logging hours; a coach is not the debtor.
• What stops is the club admin's ability to make changes, until the debt is settled.

Separately, we may suspend a club — which disables its join code — where we reasonably believe it is necessary for safeguarding, legal compliance, or to prevent serious misuse of the platform. Suspension is a safety measure, not a debt-collection one, and we will tell you why unless the law prevents us.

10. Term and termination

This agreement runs from the day your club is activated and continues until terminated.

• Either side may terminate on 30 days' written notice, for any reason. Email is fine (to hello@playnowclub.co.uk from us to your club's registered admin address, or from you to us).
• We may terminate or suspend immediately if your club materially breaches this agreement and does not fix the breach within 14 days of notice, or where required for safeguarding or by law.
• You may terminate immediately if we materially breach this agreement and do not fix the breach within 14 days of your notice.

On termination:

• Your subscription stops at the end of the notice period; you pay for the period up to then.
• Parent payments through the service stop. Active Direct Debit subscriptions created through the service will be cancelled as at termination; your club is responsible for telling affected families and for arranging any ongoing collection directly with them. Your Stripe account is yours: your relationship with Stripe, and any money in your account, are unaffected by this agreement ending.
• Data is handled as set out in Schedule 1: identifiable child records are anonymised, and financial records are retained for 6 years as the law requires.
• Section 6 (the indemnity), section 11 (liability) and Schedule 1's post-termination terms survive.

11. Liability

What we do not limit. Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

Our cap. Subject to that, PlayNow's total liability to your club under or in connection with this agreement, in any 12-month period, is limited to the fees your club paid PlayNow in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. This mirrors the cap in our terms of service.

What we are not responsible for. We are not liable for losses that were not reasonably foreseeable when the agreement was made, or for loss of profit, revenue or goodwill. We are not responsible for decisions Stripe or Klarna make about your club or your members — including account approvals, payout timing, dispute outcomes and credit eligibility — although we will help you deal with them where we reasonably can.

Your indemnity is not capped by this section. The club's obligation under section 6 reflects money actually taken from PlayNow by Stripe on your club's account, and is not reduced by the cap above.

12. General

• Changes to this agreement. We may update this agreement by giving you at least 30 days' notice. If a change is materially to your detriment and you do not accept it, you may terminate before it takes effect.
• Assignment. Neither side may transfer this agreement without the other's consent, except that we may transfer it as part of a sale or reorganisation of our business, on notice to you.
• Entire agreement. This agreement, its Schedule, and the rates and tier descriptions published on our pricing page are, together with our terms of service, the whole agreement between us about the service. Neither side relies on anything said outside them, but nothing in this clause limits liability for fraud.
• Precedence. This agreement (including Schedule 1) prevails over our terms of service to the extent of any conflict between them.
• No partnership. This agreement does not make us partners, employer and employee, or agents of each other.
• Notices. Written notices may be given by email to the addresses above.
• If part of this agreement is unenforceable, the rest still stands.

13. Governing law

This agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from it.

Schedule 1 — Data processing terms

These terms apply where PlayNow processes personal data on the club's behalf and are intended to satisfy Article 28 of the UK GDPR.

1. Roles

• The club is the controller of member records collected through the service: child names and dates of birth, child medical conditions and notes, emergency contacts, and parent contact details entered as part of a child's registration. PlayNow processes this data as the club's processor, only on the club's documented instructions. This agreement, and the club's use of the service's features, are those instructions.
• PlayNow is the controller of account data — parents', staff's and club admins' own accounts, sign-in and security records — and of its own billing records. That processing is covered by PlayNow's privacy notice, not this Schedule.
• Stripe and Klarna are independent controllers of the payment and credit data they collect for their own purposes, under their own terms.

2. Details of the processing

3. PlayNow's obligations as processor

PlayNow will:

• process member records only on the club's documented instructions, unless required to do otherwise by law (in which case we will tell the club before processing, unless the law forbids it);
• ensure everyone we authorise to access the data is bound by confidentiality;
• apply the security measures in section 5 of this Schedule;
• help the club respond to data subjects exercising their rights, and help the club meet its obligations on security, breach notification and data protection impact assessments, taking into account the nature of the processing and the information available to us;
• tell the club without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting the club's member records;
• tell the club if, in our opinion, an instruction from the club would breach data protection law;
• keep member records hosted in the UK or EU, and not transfer them outside the UK except under an adequacy decision or other safeguards that UK data protection law recognises;
• make available the information reasonably necessary to demonstrate compliance with this Schedule, and allow audits as set out in section 6.

4. Sub-processors

The club gives general authorisation for PlayNow to use these sub-processors:

We will give the club at least 30 days' notice before adding or replacing a sub-processor that processes member records. If the club reasonably objects on data protection grounds and we cannot resolve the objection, the club may terminate this agreement under section 10 without penalty. We remain responsible to the club for our sub-processors' performance.

5. Security measures (summary)

• Two-factor sign-in is mandatory on every account, with no exceptions.
• Access to a child's medical detail is audit-logged, every time, including who viewed it and under what scope.
• Staff bank details are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM); they are masked by default and revealed only through a logged, one-at-a-time reveal — never in bulk, never in emails.
• The financial ledger and the audit log are append-only, enforced at database level: entries can be added but never altered or deleted.
• Consent captured at registration is versioned, with a snapshot of the exact wording the parent saw.
• Hosting is in the UK/EU, with API traffic proxied by Cloudflare (see section 4 of this Schedule). The website carries no advertising and no third-party tracker: sign-in stores a session token that is cleared on sign-out, the optional first-party analytics runs only for a visitor who has consented and sets no cookie at all, and Stripe sets its own strictly necessary cookies on payment pages.
• PlayNow holds only the date and level of DBS checks as attested by the club — never certificate numbers or results.

6. Audit rights

Once in any 12-month period, and on 30 days' written notice, the club may ask PlayNow to demonstrate compliance with this Schedule. We will answer reasonable written questions and provide relevant documentation (such as security summaries and sub-processor lists). Where that genuinely does not resolve a well-founded concern, the club may commission an audit by an independent auditor bound by confidentiality, at the club's cost, during business hours, in a way that does not expose other clubs' data. This reflects that PlayNow is a multi-tenant service: audits are of our controls and records, not free access to our systems.

7. Retention, return and deletion

• During the agreement: identifiable child records are retained for 24 months after a registration ends, then anonymised so that no one can reasonably be identified from what remains. Financial records are retained for 6 years, as required by law.
• On termination: the club may export its member records before the agreement ends; we will assist on request. After termination, PlayNow will anonymise identifiable member records rather than hard-delete them, so that no one can reasonably be identified from what remains, because financial records we are legally required to keep reference those registrations — the person is removed, the record remains. Financial records are retained for 6 years and then deleted or irreversibly anonymised — the append-only ledger is anonymised rather than physically deleted.
• Erasure requests during the agreement are handled the same way: anonymisation of the person, retention of the legally required financial record, with the versioned consent record (which contains no personal data) preserved as evidence that consent was taken.

PlayNow Ltd, company number 17390200, registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 1B Monson Road, London NW10 5UR.