Federation Management in OpenTrack
Highlighting the OpenTrack features that make life easy for federations across Europe and beyond
While OpenTrack’s Federation Management System sees use in plenty of different countries, it’s renewal season in the UK, which means Athletics Northern Ireland (ANI) are making the most of all available features to ensure their athletes transition smoothly into the 2025-26 competition year.
In this update:
Athlete Licensing
Anti-Doping Disclaimers
Club Affiliations
We’ve been delighted to work with ANI for the for the past three years to provide our Federation Management System to manage their clubs and athletes — read on to hear all about it!
Athlete Licensing
By far the biggest undertaking every year for club and federation administrators alike is making sure athletes are fully licensed for competition.
Each year, OpenTrack’s renewal window functionality means athletes in Northern Ireland have 30 days before their licences are due to expire, allowing time to get everyone paid up for the season ahead.
Club admins can choose to renew any number of athletes in their club, whether 1, 10, or 100, paying for licences through our easy Stripe integration, or by requesting an invoice that OpenTrack then generates automatically, allowing them to pay via bank transfer.
For staff at ANI, they’ve moved from manually accepting each licence to granting licences automatically, provided athletes are paid up and have accepted the ANI-specific anti-doping disclaimer, which brings us onto our next section
Anti-Doping Disclaimers
For the last few years, UK Athletics have required all athletes entering licensed competitions to accept a set of anti-doping terms, making sure that everyone acknowledges the need to be following the rules.
Whilst the option to include these terms in the competition entry process has been available for organisers using our Competition Management System since the beginning, athletes in Northern Ireland have things even simpler.
Each Northern Irish athlete, (or parent of an athlete for those under 16) is required to accept the terms to be eligible for a licence, and therefore to be able to compete.
When managing athlete licences, club administrators can see who has and hasn’t signed, and therefore who to nudge, and there are clear warnings when trying to renew the licences of athletes who haven’t signed to make sure no-one slips through.
Club Affiliations
The final piece of the federation management puzzle is making sure that clubs, as well as their athletes, are affiliated.
With online and offline payment options, just like for athletes, federation administrators at ANI have the option to mark club affiliations as paid if they’ve gone via bank transfer, or club administrators can renew directly through OpenTrack.
These options are available as soon as the renewal window starts, allowing clubs to ensure they’re always up to date.
Once payment has been made, the club’s affiliation is valid for another year - simple as that!
OpenTrack’s Federation Management System is a powerful tool that cuts admin time, helping federation staff spend more time delivering athletics — if you think your federation could benefit, we’d love to give you a demo.
As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want help bringing your athletics into the 21st century, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.