How to support RIASA throughout the 2023/24 season & Important Information regarding squads, fixtures and live-streaming.

We’re back on the pitch! It’s already been a busy 4 weeks which has included welcoming our new student-athletes into the programme, getting stuck into pre-season and preparing for our first competitive fixtures, which will take place on Wednesday 27th September 2023.

Ahead of these competitive fixtures, we wanted to share important information regarding live-streaming and other ways in which you can support RIASA throughout the season.

Firstly, we would like to extend a massive welcome to the parents of our new student intake. Returning students and their family and friends may already know this information, with an intense schedule and a larger cohort size this year, we wanted to clarify the ways in which you can support your son or daughter.

Squads

Over the last 4 weeks, our coaches have been watching closely to determine which squad each student will be placed in.

We have multiple RIASA squads, so we can ensure that every student is playing competitively. It’s also a great opportunity to see player development – no squad is permanent and there will be constant movement throughout the season.

The 4 squad names are RIASA Bradford, RIASA Helsinki, RIASA Leeds and RIASA London in that order.

Leagues

This season we have RIASA Bradford and RIASA Helsinki competing in the West Riding County Development U23 League West.

RIASA Leeds and RIASA London will be competing in the West Riding County Development U23 League East.

Links for tables:

West Riding County Development U23 League West

West Riding County Development U23 League East

We also have 2 squads in the Men’s Northern BUCS league. This league is more flexible and most players will compete in this. The teams are named Richmond Men’s 1 and Richmond Men’s 2 in the BUCS league. We will supply a link for this league when it kicks off in a few weeks.

The West Riding County Development U23 League fixtures will be played on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Any BUCS fixtures are usually played on Wednesday afternoons.

You will be able to access the planned schedule from the links we have provided, however these regularly change. The best way to know what’s coming up for the week is following our main Instagram account, where we announce upcoming fixtures, usually on a Sunday evening or Monday morning.

When we announce the upcoming fixtures, we will select which games will be live-streamed for that week. You can then choose which one to watch!

Our female student-athletes will be competing for Barnsley Women this season.

The women’s first team compete in the North East Regional Women’s Football Premier League. There is also a U23 league which Barnsley compete in, which starts in a few weeks. During the 2023/24 season, our female students have the opportunity to compete in any of these two teams as they progress and develop at Barnsley.

We are pleased to announce that RIASA Academy Coach Jack Salvatore has now taken the lead role for our female roster. He is also involved with Barnsley, which will see him help out with coaching and developing our players within their management set-up.

For all the fixtures and league standings, check out the below link:

North East Regional Women’s Football Premier League

We plan on recording and live-streaming every match possible for our female student-athletes this season. The fixtures are mainly on a Sunday, usually around mid-afternoon.

We will post updates on our Instagram account, but Barnsley will also post regular updates on theirs too. 

Social Media

Social media is powerful and here at RIASA we love sharing content which highlights the best bits from training and games. We post mainly on Instagram and Facebook, however, we also use Twitter and TickTok

You’ll notice on social media we post daily, sometimes numerous times a day, with content that happens throughout the week, including interviews, images, videos from training and important announcements regarding fixtures. We do try to make sure we cover as many students as possible within our content.  

Please follow RIASA on Instagram and Facebook to see daily updates.

Inside Training & YouTube

‘Inside training’ is very popular amongst our students and their families. This is simply a full edited video from inside a particular training session in which we film and release content.

As a guide, during any given week we would put out 2-4 inside training sessions. Again, this will differ from week-to-week as we start to compete in games. All students will be covered in one of these videos unless they are injured. 

Subscribe to our YouTube for inside training and other RIASA related videos such as behind the scenes, interviews with players and coaches and full recorded games.

Live-streaming Games

The section that you have all been waiting for, here we are going to provide detailed information about how you can watch live games and how we plan on managing the schedule during the season. We will use two platforms to live-stream our fixtures during the season, they are as follows: YouTube and VEO. 

95% of our fixtures will be live-streamed and recorded using VEO. We will try and use YouTube for Showcase fixtures and other important games through-out the season.

YouTube

We have been live-streaming our games on YouTube for several years now, and we will continue to do this for selected games this season. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and you will be able to preview any scheduled games that are planned to be broadcast.

YouTube is great because it allows smart TV integration, and you can also watch live from any smart device such as phone or laptop. If you subscribe to your app, you should receive notifications regarding live-streams.

VEO

We recently announced on social media that we have invested in VEO’s latest camera (VEO 2) which enables intelligent game recording and the newly featured live-streaming capability. As an academy, we are excited to be using this revolutionary equipment to help our players develop further and showcase our games across the world.

VEO is different to YouTube and is app based, so you will need to go onto your app or android store and download VEO Live. Once this app is downloaded, you will need to create an account to access the live stream.

Download on Apple

Download on Android

Once you have signed up, you will then need to search for ‘RIASA’ and follow our club. By doing this, you should receive push notifications when we go live.

If you have downloaded the VEO Live app this link should take you to our club.

When the game is live through the app, there is also a share option in which you can copy the link to share with other people (ideal for people who may not be tech-savvy).  You can also post this link across your social media to generate more watchers.

We have listed the VEO and YouTube live links in our Link tree, which can be found on our Instagram and Facebook. Click these to see the latest live-streamed games. 

Watch the below video for further information about VEO and how to watch a live-stream.

Schedule for live-streaming

As mentioned, we have a busy games schedule over the next 9 months. We want to try and live stream a minimum of 2-3 games per week, covering each squad where possible.

We will plan 1 week in advance and release the game coverage on Instagram and Facebook between Friday-Sunday. This will include all the fixtures coming up, and we will highlight which ones are live, so you know when to watch.

From time-to-time, fixtures may be cancelled due to inclement weather or other factors beyond our control. We will always post announcements across social media as soon as we are made aware. 

Every game that we live-stream is also recorded in full HD and later available to watch on our YouTube channel. We know that our students like to watch back the full game and some of them use these videos to create highlights – we will continue to do this throughout the season.

Connection drop-outs and signal issues

Streaming outside, sometimes on remote pitches, there is potential for connection issues or signal losses. We know this is frustrating, and we will try our absolute best to resolve these immediately.

RIASA Store

Kitlocker have now updated the RIASA store with that latest training and match wear ranges. Purchase replica kit and support RIASA on the road!

View store

Finally…

We would like to thank everyone for their support. We can’t wait to see each and every student develop on and off the field. WE ARE RIASA!