Football School

YOUNG SPORTSWRITER – TERMS & CONDITIONS 2021

  • This competition is promoted by Walker Books Ltd., a company incorporated in England under registered number 1378601 and having its registered office at 87 Vauxhall Walk, London, SE11 5HJ (the “Promoter”) and is not open to employees of the Promoter, their families and anyone else professionally connected to this competition
  • Entries must be submitted via the Football School website www.footballschool.co/young-sportswriter-2021/ online entry form with Football School/Guardian Young Sportswriter Competition and relevant age category in the subject line, before the closing date. The age categories are: 7-9 year olds; and 10-12 year olds.
  • Please ask your parent or guardian or teacher to submit your competition entry for you and DO NOT submit your entry yourself
  • Entries to this competition may only be submitted on behalf of a child aged between 7 – 12 years old at the time of entry who is resident in the UK or the Republic of Ireland. To submit an entry you must be the parent/legal guardian of the child entrant or the child’s teacher or school. You must follow the entry instructions given, providing all the information requested. Only one entry is permitted per child.
  • The competition will run from Tuesday 8th June 2021 until until Tuesday August 10th 2021
  • Closing date for entries is 6 p.m. on Tuesday, August 10th 2021
  • The competition entry must be a piece of sports writing (about any sport) which can be either a match report, a feature or an interview (either fictional or real) and no more than 600 (six hundred) words in length, without illustrations
  • The entry must include the name and age of the entrant at the date of entry, and an email address for the parent/legal guardian or teacher/school who submits the entry. The name of the parent/legal guardian or teacher/school must also be provided.
  • Entries containing invalid e-mail addresses will be automatically disqualified
  • Entries received after the closing date for this competition as stated will not be considered
  • No purchase necessary
  • The prizes offered for this competition are non-transferable and there is no cash alternative; in the event a prize offered is unavailable a similar prize of greater or equal value will be substituted
  • There will be one main prize winner and two runner up prize winners in each age category, selected from all valid entries received by the closing date 
  • The judges will include the authors of Football School and various Guardian columnists, writers and editors. They will be looking for a piece of engaging and exciting writing that clearly tells the story of any sports match or sports person’s life and what makes that piece memorable compared to other entries
  • Each main prize winner will have their winning competition entry published in The Guardian (in print and/or online, at The Guardian’s discretion and the Guardian reserves the right to edit the competition entries for the purposes of publication) as well as receiving a £100 voucher to a sports shop or the winners’ favourite football team store, a set of Football School books plus a live online Workshop with one of the Guardian’s top sportswriters (for the class of the winning entrant OR as an ‘At Home’ session)
  • Each runner up prize winner will receive a  set of the Football School books
  • The winners will be notified within sixty (60) days after the closing date.  Entries will not be returned.
  • The Promoter accepts no responsibility for entries that are late, lost, damaged, illegible or corrupted in transit
  • The winners must claim their prize within 30 days of notification by the Promoter otherwise they will forfeit their prize
  • By entering, all entrants grant the Promoter and The Guardian a worldwide, royalty-free perpetual, non-exclusive licence to edit, publish and use their entries in any and all media (including print and online). 
  • By entering, the main prize winners consent to the use of their first name, school name, city of residence, photograph and/or image for publicity purposes in all media carried out by the Promoter and The Guardian without payment or compensation
  • The Promoter’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into
  • By entering this competition, entrants agree they hold the necessary consents to do so and to be bound by these terms and conditions which may be amended at any time by the Promoter
  • The rules of this competition shall be governed by UK law 
  • All personal details submitted with each entry will be held in accordance with the Promoter’s Privacy Policy and all applicable laws relating to the protection of Personal Data or privacy which have effect in the United Kingdom from time to time
  • By entering this competition, an entrant is providing his/her personal data to the Promoter as “data controller”. Any data submitted by entrants will be used by the Promoter only for the purposes of administering this competition and will not be shared with other companies except to the extent necessary to provide the prize and to exercise the publicity rights granted above and all data will be deleted following completion of the competition, unless otherwise stated in the entry details