4CM — Terms of Service

In force. Cleared for publication on the first-pass clearance record of 2026-07-25 (counsel-role review), countersigned by the founder/DPO 2026-07-26. Claim-verified against production behaviour before release — see docs/legal/terms-claim-verification.md — which is what surfaced and corrected the messaging-relay description now reflected in §4 and §5. Version: 1.0 · Effective from: 2026-07-26 Last updated: 2026-07-02 (v1 posture — 13+ only, free service) Related: Privacy Notice, Privacy Notice for Young Players, Community Standards & Acceptable Use, Cookie & PECR Statement, Club Subscription & SaaS Agreement (club-facing), OSA Risk Assessment (s.21/22 moderation-terms duty).

These terms are written in plain English on purpose. If any part is unclear, tell us at support@4cmcoaching.co.uk and we will try to make it clearer.

---

1. Who we are and what 4CM is

4CM (“we”, “us”) is a youth football coaching and player development platform. Coaches plan sessions and rate development on the FA 4 Corner Model, players reflect on their progress, parents stay informed, and club admins manage teams.

These terms are an agreement between you and 4CM, Inc., a Delaware corporation, file number 10715824, whose registered office is Northwest Registered Agent Service, Inc., 8 The Green, Ste B, Dover, DE 19901, United States. They apply to everyone who uses the platform in the UK: coaches, players (13+), parents and club administrators.

4CM, Inc. is incorporated in the United States and these terms are governed by the law of England and Wales — see Section 15. That is deliberate, not an oversight: the service, its users and its clubs are in the UK, so UK law governs your relationship with us wherever we are registered.

Your club has its own agreement with us (the Club Subscription & SaaS Agreement). Under that agreement your club controls the personal data it processes on 4CM, and we process it on the club’s instructions. How data is handled is explained in the Privacy Notice — these terms deal with using the service.

2. The deal in v1

4CM v1 is free. There are no paid features, no subscriptions and no in-app purchases. Section 12 explains what will happen before we ever introduce paid features.

3. Who can have an account

• You must be 13 or older to have a 4CM account. We check date of birth at signup, and accounts must use a real date of birth.
• Players join through an invitation from their club, tied to an age-banded team.
• If you are 13–17, you accept these terms yourself, and we let a parent or guardian know you have signed up (see the Privacy Notice for what they are told).
• Parents have their own accounts linked to their child’s account.
• Coaches and club admins are invited by their club. Coach accounts require a valid enhanced DBS check, the FA Safeguarding Children certificate and the FA RESPECT acknowledgement. If a DBS or FA certificate expires, the coach account becomes read-only until a renewal is uploaded.

4. Your responsibilities

Everyone:

• Don’t use 4CM to harass, bully, threaten or demean anyone, or to share unlawful content. The Community Standards & Acceptable Use document is part of these terms.
• If you see something that worries you about a child’s safety, use the Report button. Don’t investigate it yourself.
• Keep your sign-in details private and tell us if you think your account has been compromised (security@4cmcoaching.co.uk).

Coaches additionally:

• Keep your DBS and FA safeguarding certificates valid.
• 4CM has no private messaging. There is no direct-message feature and no way to contact a player privately through the platform. Anything you write to a player is attached to a coaching record — a clip note, a session, a rating — and is visible to them in their own account. Never attempt to contact a player under 18 privately by any other route. Safeguarding concerns go to the Welfare Officer and are never a way to contact a player.
• Don’t copy or store players’ personal data outside 4CM.
• You are bound by the FA Code of Conduct and the FA Safeguarding Children Policy (full texts at thefa.com), in addition to these terms.

Players:

• Use your real date of birth. Age controls the protections you get.

Parents:

• Keep your contact details current so safeguarding and consent notifications reach you.

5. Acceptable use

You must not:

• reverse engineer, scrape or access the platform by automated means without our written consent;
• pass off AI-generated content from 4CM as human-authored where attribution matters;
• upload unlawful content of any kind — child sexual abuse material will be reported to the authorities;
• attempt to get around safeguarding controls (for example, trying to contact a minor off-platform, or using a coaching-note field as a private message channel).

6. Content, moderation and online safety

The Online Safety Act 2023 requires us to tell you how content is moderated. In short:

• The Community Standards & Acceptable Use document sets out what is and isn’t acceptable, with enforcement levels from L0 (advisory) to L4 (account closure and, where required, statutory referral).
• Reports go into a triage queue handled per our Moderation & Appeals SOP. Safeguarding-flavoured reports route to the club Welfare Officer and, where needed, our Platform Safeguarding Lead.
• If we take action against your content or account, we tell you what rule was applied, and you can appeal. Appeals are reviewed by someone other than the original decision-maker.

7. AI features

• AI outputs on 4CM (session suggestions, development summaries) are suggestions, not professional advice. The coach is always responsible for coaching decisions.
• Player-facing AI development analysis is off by default for under-18s and only runs after the opt-in process described in the Privacy Notice. A coach reviews AI development output before a player sees it.
• AI features depend on third-party providers. If a provider has an outage or a safety issue, we may disable AI features without notice.
• You can use 4CM fully with AI features switched off.

8. What 4CM is not

• 4CM is a coaching aid, not a medical or psychological service. Wellness logs are not diagnostic. If a child is in distress, the right path is a doctor, a safeguarding professional or a service like NSPCC (0808 800 5000) — not an app.
• 4CM does not replace parental supervision.
• 4CM does not replace FA-mandated safeguarding processes. For a safeguarding concern, the statutory pathway (Welfare Officer → LADO / MASH / police) applies; our tools support that pathway.

9. Your content and intellectual property

• We own the platform, software, brand and platform-curated content.
• Coaches own the sessions, drills and coaching notes they author. You give us a licence to display them on the platform while your account is active plus 1 year (for attribution continuity).
• Players own their journal entries and self-ratings.
• We will only use coach-authored content in marketing with your separate, explicit consent — never bundled into signup.

10. Availability

We aim for 99% monthly uptime. Planned maintenance comes with notice; emergency maintenance may not. v1 is provided free and “as available”.

11. Ending the agreement

• You can leave at any time: Settings → Delete Account. One click, no retention offers, no questions required.
• We can suspend or close accounts for: breach of these terms, a safeguarding incident that requires it, an expired DBS/FA certificate that isn’t renewed, or fraudulent or unlawful use. Where lawful and safe to do so, we tell you why and you can appeal (Section 6).
• When an account closes, data is deleted or retained per the retention periods in the Privacy Notice. Some records must be kept for statutory reasons (for example DBS/FA certificate records for 7 years; welfare incident records until the subject reaches 25).

12. If we ever introduce paid features

v1 is free. Before any paid feature launches:

• pricing and contract terms will be in plain English (Consumer Rights Act 2015);
• you will get a 14-day cooling-off period (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013) unless you expressly waive it to start service immediately;
• cancellation will be one click — as easy as signing up;
• a refund policy will be published first;
• paid features will not be marketed to under-18s (CAP Code);
• any change to these terms that comes with paid features will be notified 30 days in advance, and you can close your account without penalty before it takes effect.

13. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or your statutory consumer rights — those can’t be excluded and we don’t try.

Beyond that:

• v1 is free, so our total liability is capped at £100. If paid plans exist in future, the cap will be the fees you paid in the previous 12 months.
• Users are responsible for content they author (coaching notes, journal entries, messages).
• AI outputs can be wrong. We build in safeguards (coach review, crisis-content routing), but we are not liable for coaching decisions taken on AI suggestions — the coach decides (Section 7).
• We are not responsible for outcomes of real-world football selection, matches or trials. 4CM is a tool, not a guarantee.

14. Changes to these terms

We give 30 days’ notice of material changes, in-app and by email. If you don’t accept a material change, you can close your account without penalty before it takes effect. Continuing to use 4CM after the notice period means you accept the new terms.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer you can bring a claim in your local UK court, and nothing in these terms forces you into arbitration.

16. Contact

General	support@4cmcoaching.co.uk
Data protection	dpo@4cmcoaching.co.uk
Security	security@4cmcoaching.co.uk
Postal	4CM, Inc., c/o Northwest Registered Agent Service, Inc., 8 The Green, Ste B, Dover, DE 19901, United States. Formal service only — email reaches us far faster.