Terms of Use

Last updated: July 24, 2026

Erie PA Pickup Soccer is an informal group of people who meet to play pickup soccer. It is not a league, a club, a business, or an organization of any kind. Nobody is employed, insured, licensed, or paid. Nobody is in charge. These terms describe what that means for you.

1. You play entirely at your own risk

Soccer carries a real risk of injury, including serious and permanent injury. There is no referee, no trainer, no medical staff, no first aid, no insurance and no supervision of any kind at these games. By turning up, warming up or playing, you accept that risk yourself.

To the fullest extent allowed by Pennsylvania law, no organizer, participant, landowner, facility operator, or other person connected with this group is liable for any injury, illness, death, loss or damage you suffer in connection with attending or playing.

2. Contact, tackles and claims against other players

Soccer is a contact sport. Tackles, collisions, kicks, knocks, sprains, strains, breaks, dental injuries and head injuries are ordinary and foreseeable parts of playing it. Nobody out there is a referee, so contact will sometimes be mistimed, clumsy or heavier than intended.

By playing you voluntarily assume those risks, and you agree not to pursue a claim against another player for an injury arising out of ordinary play, including a fair, late, clumsy or mistimed tackle.

This has limits, and you should understand them. It does not apply to conduct that is deliberate, reckless, or intended to cause harm. Nobody who sets out to hurt another player is protected by anything on this page. It also does not waive any right that Pennsylvania law does not permit you to give up, and it does not stop anybody from reporting an assault to the police.

3. Nothing here is insured or covered

There is no insurance attached to these games of any kind. No accident cover, no medical cover, no liability cover, no disability cover.

If you are injured, your own health insurance is the only thing that applies. No organizer, no participant, and no facility will pay for your treatment, your recovery, your lost earnings, your travel, or anything else. Check that you are covered before you play.

4. The fields and facilities we use

Games are played on public parks or other facilities that have nothing to do with this group. Whoever owns, operates or maintains that field is not an organizer, sponsor, partner or supervisor of these games, has not agreed to host them, and is not responsible in any way for what happens at them or to you.

You are expected to follow every posted rule of the park or facility, respect its opening hours, park where you are allowed to park, take your litter home, and leave the place exactly as you found it. If a facility asks the group to stop using it, the group stops using it.

5. Damage and vandalism

You are personally responsible for any damage you cause to a field, building, fence, goal, net, light, surface, equipment, vehicle or another person's property. You will be liable for the full cost of repair or replacement.

Vandalism is not tolerated. Deliberate damage to a facility or to anybody's property will be reported to the facility owner and to the police, and can result in criminal prosecution as well as a civil claim for the cost. Anybody who does it is done with this group permanently.

Nothing is provided and nothing is stored. Bring your own gear. Nobody is responsible for your belongings, and things left at a public field do go missing.

6. Age

You must be 18 or over to play. There is no exception to this, and there is no version of it that works with a parent's permission. Signing up asks you to confirm your age, and doing so untruthfully means you were never permitted to play under these terms.

This is not a judgement about anybody's ability. It is that there is no referee, no trainer, no insurance and nobody supervising, and a group of strangers organising themselves through a Facebook page is not a safe place to leave a child.

7. How you are expected to behave

Everyone is expected to:

• Play safely. No slide tackles, no studs up, no reckless challenges.
• Call their own fouls honestly and accept other people's calls.
• Treat every other player with respect, whatever their level.
• Avoid harassment, discrimination, threats, and fighting of any kind.
• Follow all rules of the field, park, or facility being used.
• Refrain from advertising, promoting, or selling anything.

Anyone who plays dangerously or treats others badly can be asked to leave. This is an informal group, so that decision gets made informally, on the spot, by the people who are there.

8. Games can change or be cancelled

Games get called off for rain, lightning, unsafe field conditions, a facility closing, or simply because not enough people turn up. Times, dates, and locations can change. Nothing on this site is a promise that a game will happen.

9. Signing up for a game

Signing up is required for each game. It exists so there is an honest headcount, and so a game with too few players is called off before anybody drives out rather than after. A game that does not reach its minimum by the deadline is cancelled automatically, and everybody who signed up is emailed.

When you sign up you are confirming that everything you entered is true, that you meet the age requirement, and that you accept these terms including everything above about risk. Ticking the box is recorded against your name with the date and time.

Your first and last name are shown to other players on the list of who is coming. Reading that list takes an account, so it is not visible to anybody with the link and not visible to a search engine. Your email address is never shown to anybody.

You can only sign yourself up. Everybody who plays registers under their own name and their own email address, so that the headcount is made of real people who can be told if the game is called off.

An account is optional and free. It is tied to your email address and is for you alone: do not sign in for somebody else or share the codes we email you. We can close an account that is being used to make bookings for people who are not coming.

Do not sign up under a false name, sign up people who are not coming, or fill the list with entries you do not intend to honor. It wrecks the only thing the list is for. Anybody doing it gets removed.

A spot is not a guarantee that a game will happen, and turning up is still at your own risk exactly as described above.

10. About this website

What the site collects, who can see what, and how to delete yourself is set out in the Privacy Policy.

Information here is provided as-is and may be out of date. Always check the Facebook group before traveling to a game.

11. Changes to these terms

These terms can change at any time. The current version is always the one on this page, and the date at the top tells you when it last changed.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If any part of them turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms can go to eriepickupsoccer@proton.me.