Empire Football League Receives Reward From USA Football, Inc.

Sarasota, FL (PRWEB) March 20, 2006

“Just following instructions from the AFA national office,” commented Empire Football League Commissioner, Dave Burch as he looked at the checks his league received from the NFL/NFL-PA sponsored national youth football organization - USA Football, Inc. totaling more than $5000.

Burch had his Empire league teams respond to a request from USA Football, Inc. to assist the youth football teams in their local communities during the 2005 season Play Football Month.

“It seemed like such a natural thing to do”, said Burch. “Our teams have been supporting their local youth football organizations by running clinics and involving themselves with youth fund-raisers for so long that the opportunity to assist the USA Football people in promoting Play Football Month was fairly easy - and profitable for our league teams.

Profitable, yes! . . . Easy, well this is still semi-pro football and nothing comes easy on our level. According to the EFL Commissioner he simply followed the instructions in an AFA press release regarding the opportunity semipro football teams had earlier this season to compete for a financial ‘thank you’ from the NFL and NFL Players Assn sponsored youth football promotion.

While the AFA national office is excited for the EFL and all its teams that shared in the more than $5000 financial grant—more importantly is the fact that for the first time in years an NFL affiliate program recognized a semi-pro football organization as a member of the Adult Amateur Football community in qualifying for the financial award.

“Although our EFL member teams did all that was expected of them in qualifying for this grant, we still needed the AFA to supply us with the proper ‘paperwork’ proving our league was under the legal umbrella of the AFA’s ‘national’ non-profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt status before issuing our share of the USA Football contest reward,” added Burch.

It’s just another one of those intangible benefits that comes along with annual membership into the AFA - like being able to participate in the national associations General Liability Insurance program. Just by making sure each of their teams were promoting the USA Football’s Play Football Month the Empire Football League was awarded more than enough funds to pay for their teams entire liability insurance for the coming 2006 season - if they choose to do so.

EFL teams are looking forward to getting even more involved next season. Click http://eteamz.active.com/americanfootballassn/files/AFANewsletter2005WinterIssue.pdf to download AFA Newsletter.

Contact: Ron Real, President, American Football Association, 941-388-3510

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