Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the websites, applications, and related services operated by FCScout at fcscout.com and associated domains (collectively, the "Service"). By accessing or using the Service — including by browsing public pages, creating an account, claiming a club listing, creating or publishing a player profile, submitting a claim or report, purchasing or managing a sponsorship, or sending a "Request to Connect" inquiry — you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service. If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

FCScout.com is a soccer club directory and player recruitment profile platform. We publish club listings (including location, pathway, and related information), tools for club representatives to claim and manage listings, optional geographic sponsorship placements, and athlete-controlled recruitment profiles that athletes may share with clubs, coaches, scouts, and others.

Consistent with our public disclaimer: FCScout.com does not directly provide football trials. We assist athletes with recruitment profiles and publish directory and related information as a central resource for viewing clubs in one place. Club pages on the Service may link to a club's official website when available. We are not affiliated with any club. FCScout is not a sports agent, talent agency, or player representative; we do not negotiate contracts, placements, or scholarships on anyone's behalf.

FCScout does not guarantee any recruitment, trial, tryout, offer, signing, scholarship, roster spot, or other outcome for any player, guardian, club, coach, or other user. Use of the Service — including publishing a profile or contacting a player through Request to Connect — creates no promise of attention, reply, or opportunity.

Please be aware of third-party scams. If someone offers you a paid trial, verify with official club sources; many legitimate trials with professional clubs are free.

You may browse publicly available portions of the Service subject to these Terms. To create or use a full account where registration is required (for example, to claim a club, manage a claimed listing, or create a player profile), you must be capable of forming a binding contract under applicable law. Except as expressly provided for player profiles below, we intend account features that create contractual obligations to be used by adults (18 years of age or older) or by a parent or legal guardian acting on behalf of an eligible minor athlete.

Player accounts and player profiles — minimum age 13. Athlete player profiles are available only to athletes who are at least thirteen (13) years of age. Accounts and player profiles for children under 13 are not permitted. We use date of birth to apply age gating.

Athletes ages 13 through 17 (minors). If you are 13–17 years old, you may create a player account and draft a profile, but a parent or legal guardian must provide a valid contact email and complete our guardian consent process before your profile may be published publicly. Until guardian consent is confirmed, the profile remains unpublished and is not publicly visible. Attempting to circumvent the guardian consent system (including by providing a false date of birth or false guardian contact) is a material violation of these Terms.

Athletes 18 years of age or older may publish eligible profiles without guardian consent, subject to these Terms and our moderation policies.

Account authentication is provided through our identity provider (currently Clerk). You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration and to keep that information updated. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.

You may maintain only one personal account unless we expressly permit otherwise in writing. You must not share your account, sell access, or impersonate another person or organization. Notify us promptly at info@fcscout.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, that present safety or legal risk (including to minors), or that are associated with abuse of our report and moderation systems, as described in Sections 5, 8, and 14.

Player recruitment profiles are created and controlled by the athlete and, where applicable, their parent or legal guardian. Profile content may include biographical information, positions, career history, season statistics, achievements, media (such as photos or video), and coach or other endorsements entered by the user.

Accuracy and verification. FCScout does not independently verify the accuracy of self-reported statistics, achievements, career history, media, or other profile content. Coach endorsements and similar statements are user-submitted. In the current version of the Service, endorsements are not independently verified by FCScout (even where a future email-confirmation flow may be planned). You must treat profile content as claims made by the poster, not as statements confirmed by FCScout.

Athletes and guardians are solely responsible for the accuracy, lawfulness, and appropriateness of all content and media they upload or publish, including that they have all rights needed to post that content and that it does not violate others' privacy or publicity rights.

Request to Connect. Public player profiles do not display the athlete’s raw email address or phone number. Third parties may submit a "Request to Connect" inquiry through the profile. Inquiries are delivered privately to the athlete’s account tools. FCScout does not facilitate live messaging as an agent, does not guarantee that any inquiry will be received, read, or answered, and does not guarantee any contact, response, recruitment outcome, or relationship arising from an inquiry.

Moderation and removal. We maintain a public report mechanism and an administrative review queue. FCScout reserves the right, in its discretion, to unpublish, restrict, or remove any player profile or related content — including in response to reports, suspected age-gating violations, unlawful or harmful content, or other Terms violations — with or without prior notice where we reasonably believe prompt action is appropriate.

Parents or legal guardians of a minor athlete may contact us at any time at info@fcscout.com to request review or removal of their child’s profile. We will respond in a manner consistent with our Privacy Policy and applicable law.

Club listings on the Service may be populated from public and third-party data sources (including openfootball club lists and related research), administrative research and import tools, and information later supplied by claimed club representatives. Listings may appear on the Service before any club official has claimed or verified them.

Unclaimed listings. FCScout does not guarantee that unclaimed club listings are complete, current, or accurate. Users should verify important information directly with the club through official channels before traveling, paying fees, or relying on tryout or contact details.

Claiming a club. Signed-in users may submit a claim asserting a relationship to a club (for example, coach, director, staff, owner, or board). Claims are reviewed by FCScout administrators. Approval is discretionary and is based on the information provided; automated email-domain verification is not currently required. False or misleading claims are prohibited. Once a claim is approved, the designated owner may manage certain profile fields for that listing subject to these Terms.

Claiming or managing a listing does not create an affiliation, endorsement, employment, or agency relationship between FCScout and the club.

FCScout may offer paid geographic sponsorship placements (for example, Featured or Premium map or directory prominence for a club within a defined region). Where self-serve checkout is enabled, sponsorship purchases and recurring billing are processed by Stripe. Your use of Stripe’s payment services is also governed by Stripe’s own terms and policies. FCScout does not receive or store your full payment card number when Stripe Checkout or the Stripe Customer Portal is used.

Current status. Self-serve sponsorship checkout is implemented in the product and may be enabled when Stripe is configured for a given environment. Until payment processing is fully enabled for your account or region, sponsorship features may be unavailable, limited to admin-managed placements, or offered only in a limited launch phase. Displayed prices (if any) are informational and the amounts charged are those set in the applicable Stripe Price or invoice at the time of purchase.

Unless otherwise stated at checkout, self-serve sponsorships are billed on a recurring monthly basis and renew until canceled through the available billing management tools (such as the Stripe Customer Portal). Canceling stops future renewal charges according to Stripe’s and the plan’s timing rules; it does not by itself entitle you to a refund for time already billed.

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"User Content" means any content you submit, upload, publish, or transmit through the Service, including profile text, media, club edits, claims, endorsements, reports, and inquiries.

You retain ownership of your User Content. By submitting User Content, you grant FCScout a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, perform, distribute, and otherwise use that User Content as needed to operate, improve, promote, and secure the Service (including showing public profiles and club pages, and creating backups). This license is a grant of rights to display and operate the Service — not a transfer of ownership. You may revoke the license by removing content or closing your account where the product allows, except that copies already distributed or reasonably retained for legal, security, or backup purposes may persist for a limited period.

You agree not to:

• Harass, threaten, stalk, or abuse any person;
• Impersonate any person or organization, or falsely claim affiliation with a club, coach, scout, or athlete;
• Submit false claims to club ownership, false age or guardian information, or knowingly false stats, achievements, or endorsements;
• Upload content you do not have the right to use (including photos, video, music, or trademarks belonging to others without permission);
• Contact, solicit, or attempt to contact minors through the Service in an inappropriate, predatory, or unlawful manner;
• Circumvent age gates, guardian consent, publish controls, or other safety features;
• Scrape, harvest, or systematically extract data from the Service without our prior written consent, or use automated means to abuse the Service;
• Interfere with the Service’s security, availability, or integrity, or attempt unauthorized access to accounts, systems, or data;
• Use the Service to spam, phish, promote scams (including paid "trial" fraud), or distribute malware;
• Post content that is unlawful, defamatory, pornographic, or that exploits or endangers minors.

We may remove User Content and suspend accounts that violate these rules, and we may cooperate with law enforcement when we believe disclosure is legally required or appropriate to protect users.

The Service — including FCScout branding, logos, site design, software, and original editorial content created by FCScout — is owned by FCScout or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, or redistribute FCScout’s branding or platform materials except as expressly allowed by these Terms or with our prior written permission.

Club logos and images appearing on the Service are used for identification purposes only and belong to their respective clubs or rights holders. FCScout does not claim ownership of those marks.

Certain geographic and club reference data used to build or enrich the directory may be derived from third-party sources, including GeoNames city data (licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — attribute GeoNames) and openfootball club name lists (public domain). Those third-party rights and attribution requirements remain in force independently of these Terms.

If you believe that content on the Service infringes your copyright, please send a notice that includes: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed; (c) identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate it (such as a URL); (d) your contact information; (e) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (f) a statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Send copyright complaints to: info@fcscout.com. We may designate a dedicated DMCA address in the future; until then, use the address above and include "Copyright Complaint" in the subject line. Upon receiving a compliant notice, we may remove or disable access to the material and, where appropriate, notify the user who posted it.

THE SERVICE AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FCSCOUT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Consistent with our About page disclaimer: information on FCScout.com is subject to change. FCScout assumes no responsibility or liability for errors or omissions in the content of this site. We do not guarantee completeness, accuracy, usefulness, or timeliness of club listings, player profiles, tryout information, sponsorship placement outcomes, or third-party links — although we strive to do our best.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or free of defects, or that any defects will be corrected. You are solely responsible for verifying information that matters to your decisions (travel, fees, tryouts, communications with clubs or athletes) through official sources.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FCSCOUT AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OPPORTUNITIES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SERVICE, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

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Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless FCScout and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your User Content; (b) your use of the Service; (c) your violation of these Terms; (d) your violation of any law or third-party right (including intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights); or (e) any dispute between you and another user, club, athlete, guardian, or third party arising from interactions facilitated through the Service.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, unpublish content, or revoke claim/owner privileges at any time if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, abused the report or claim systems, endangered minors, or created legal or security risk. We may also discontinue or modify the Service (or any part of it) with reasonable notice where practicable.

You may stop using the Service at any time. You may request deletion of your account and associated personal data by contacting info@fcscout.com. We will process deletion requests in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law. (Self-serve in-product account deletion may be added later; until then, email is the supported path.) Certain information may be retained where required for legal, security, dispute, or backup purposes.

Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (including ownership, license grants for residual copies, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute terms) will survive.

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Pending that confirmation, nothing in this Section waives rights that cannot be waived under mandatory consumer protection laws that apply to you.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. For material changes, we will provide additional notice reasonably calculated to inform users — for example, a notice on the Service or an email to the address associated with your account — where practicable.

Your continued use of the Service after the updated Terms become effective constitutes acceptance of the changes, except where applicable law requires a different form of consent. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the Service and may request account deletion as described above.

Questions about these Terms, copyright complaints, guardian profile review requests, and account deletion requests may be sent to:

info@fcscout.com

Additional background about the Service appears on our About page.