The purpose of our Guest player policy is to:

1. protect the experience of players by preventing the unavailability of teammates from creating a competitive imbalance 
2. allow for substitution opportunities for players in order to prevent long term injuries through overuse, lack of hydration, etc.
3. give players who have to miss their regularly scheduled match a chance to play on another night during that same week

Note: making a team able to "win" is not on this list  

So, some guidelines:

1. Only players registered and insured for the current year may guest play.

2. Teams should not gain an advantage by having guest players.  Simply missing players is not going to be grounds for getting to have guests.  A larger roster is preferred over constantly needing guests.   

3. Players should RSVP for their games by midnight the night before the game.  Any non-response RSVPs will be considered a No and those players should not attend the game if the number of players, including guests, would give the team more than two subs.  Basically, our goal is to have a max of two subs, and if you didn't respond on time you lost your chance to play.

4. Managers will report on the Manager What'sApp by 9am the day of the game if they need/want guests.  One or both of the managers will then post on the LRAS Leaguewide chat board announcing how many guests are needed for that night's game.  

5. Any player may respond saying they are available and interested in playing.  The two Managers of that night's game along with a Board member (Neal and/or Erika) will review those interested and discuss via WhatsApp or Text.  One of the managers will respond to the chat board by 2pm with what guests are invited to play that night.

6. If not enough people have asked to guest play by this time, the request will remain open and players invited as they reply as long as both managers and Neal/Erika approve.

7. Guest players are considered "needed" if a team is reasonably confident it will have no more than 11 players available for a match.  Guest players may be used to allow a team to have up to 13 players available for a match.  Female guests are considered "needed" if a team will have less than 2 women available for a match.  You can ask for a guest so that you can be sure you have one sub, but not more than one. 

Guests will be invited with priority given for (and not necessarily in this order):

• Balancing the teams' relative strength
• Allowing a team to reach the number of women needed for a full team
• Goalkeepers, if needed
• To allow a player who will miss their regular match that week a chance to play
• Players who have not yet played as a guest this season 
• Players who have not yet played as a guest against the same team this season

So in short, what this means is that managers will work with Neal/Erika to make sure that guests are invited based on the above guidelines and priority.  The timeline is:

• Midnight - deadline for RSVPs
• 9am - managers begin discussion of number of guests to be invited and announce it on the Leaguewide chat
• 2pm - managers invite guests