Governing Docs

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The main operating and playing rule documents that the organization follows are termed the Governing Documents. The documents, in order of importance, are each described in the additional sections shown to the right.

The documents can really be broken into two groups:

• the operational or administrative documents of the league and
• the playing rules particular to soccer and youth sport

Operational documents, in order of precedence, are the Bylaws, the Policy Statements, and the Standard Regional Guidelines.

The Playing Rules in similar order are the Rules and Regulations, the National Tournament Handbook governing Secondary Play, and Short Sided Guidelines.

The Operational documents are mostly collected together into a single published document known as the AYSO Reference Book or Yellow Book. Of the Playing Rules, only the Rules and Regulations are in the Yellow Book. Otherwise, the Playing Rules (sans the National Tournament Handbook) are in the Guidance for Referees and Coaches that also include the Safe Haven training material.

By reference and due to the affiliation with USSF, the FIFA Laws of the Game? are a part of the Rules and Regulations and really define the major playing rules. USSF governing documents, as dictated by affiliation with them, also come into scope.

Historically, the major governing rules were only changed by vote of the Executive Membership at the NAGM?. Starting in 2008, the NBOD? took it up on itself to simply change the documents by a vote of its members; using the stance that only if voting rights of the organization are changed does this require membership vote. A ballot measure to codify the historic, practiced rule of requiring membership vote to change the documents failed to pass the majority at the 2008 NAGM. Now the documents are frequently updated by the NBOD?, often without notification or indication that such changes have been made. The precedent setting change to the Rules and Regulations document by the NBOD was to allow for a National Sponsor logo on the uniforms.

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