England Athletics ‘Accredited Club’ status forms part of the only national cross sports quality accreditation scheme, ‘Clubmark’. It is built around a set of core criteria which ensure that accredited clubs operate to a set of consistent, accepted and adopted minimum operating standards.

England Athletics recognises and values the commitment made by sports clubs to develop high quality, welcoming environments for all athletes. The development of athletics clubs which encourages people to take-up sport, improve their talents and initiate and maintain life-long participation in sport is an essential part of our work to support the sporting infrastructure in England.

Club Accreditation process

The process of gaining club accreditation is simple and all clubs can achieve accredited status. Pro-active clubs can work through the portfolio and complete their application in just 2-3 months. Many clubs that aren’t accredited yet will have some of the required infrastructure and processes in place already. For the procedures that aren’t already in place, England Athletics provides templates to make it easy to implement.

Club accreditation is something that all clubs, including those without junior sections, should work towards. There are many benefits that club accreditation can bring to all clubs.

Achieving England Athletics ‘Accredited Club’ status will ensure your athletics club or running club is nationally recognised as providing an ‘active, accessible and accredited’ club environment. 

Click here for a diagram of the process.

Clubmark consists of four key areas:

1.    Activity
2.    Duty of Care and Safeguarding and Protecting Club Members
3.    Knowing Your Club and its Community
4.    Club Management

More information

• Club Accreditation can benefit an athletics club or running club in a number of ways, to see some of the potential benefits, click here. 
• There are some case studies that show how athletics clubs and running clubs have actually benefited from club accreditation, click here to read the stories.
• If you wish to see which Athletics and Running clubs are accredited and which are working towards accreditation, click here.
• If you need more information about club accreditation and the application process, click here to see FAQs.
• To see a number of resources and templates available for clubs to use, click here.
• www.clubmark.org.uk provides more information about club accreditation (for junior clubs only).
• Runningsports is a Sport England programme.  A number of quick guides have been designed to assist clubs in different aspects of club management.  Click here to view the guides.