Terms of Service

1. Who We Are and What You Are Agreeing To

Spike is a volleyball community platform operated by Bielov Software Limited ("Spike", "we", "us", "our"). We provide the website at www.volleyspike.app and the Spike mobile applications (together, the "Service"). You can contact us at [email protected].

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legally binding agreement between you and us. They apply whenever you use the Service. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data and forms part of the picture, but it is a notice rather than part of this contract.

By creating an account, ticking the acceptance box, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service. If you use the Service on behalf of a club or other organization, you confirm you have authority to bind that organization, and "you" includes it.

2. The Service

Spike helps volleyball communities organize themselves: creating clubs, teams and groups; scheduling and joining events; messaging and posting within your groups; sharing photos and videos; collecting event payments and club membership subscriptions; and coaching tools such as drills, training plans and player feedback.

Spike is a tool. We are not the organizer of any club, team or event on the Service, we are not a party to arrangements between organizers and participants, and we do not employ, vet, endorse or supervise organizers, coaches, players or venues. Section 6 explains what that means for events and physical activity.

You may use the Service for organizing and taking part in volleyball activities, including activities you charge for through the features we provide (such as paid events and club subscriptions). You may not resell the Service itself, or use it to build a competing product, harvest data, or run activities unrelated to its purpose.

3. Accounts and Eligibility

• You must be at least 13 years old to create your own account. Younger children can only use Spike through a guardian-managed profile (section 4).
• In some countries the law sets a higher age (up to 16) at which you can consent to the processing of your personal data. If that applies to you, we may require confirmation of consent from a person with parental responsibility before some features are available.
• You must provide accurate information when registering, including your real date of birth and country, and keep it up to date.
• You must verify your email address before you can sign in.
• Your account is personal. Keep your password secure, do not share your account, and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorized use. You are responsible for activity on your account unless it results from our failure.
• You may hold only one personal account.

If you give us information that is false, inaccurate or incomplete, we may suspend or close your account (section 15).

4. Children, Guardians and Families

Spike is designed for real-world volleyball communities, which include children. We support two ways for under-18s to be part of the Service:

• Guardian-managed profiles. A parent or guardian can create and manage a profile for their child within their family (household). Children under 13 can only use Spike this way. A managed profile has no login of its own; the guardian acts on the child's behalf (for example responding to event invitations, registering for events, or making payments), controlled by permission settings.
• Child login access. For a managed child aged 13 or over, the guardian can grant the child their own login. The guardian keeps their oversight role within the family.

If you create or manage a child's profile, you confirm that:

• you hold parental responsibility for that child;
• you consent, on the child's behalf, to the processing of their data as described in the Privacy Policy, and to these Terms applying to their use;
• the information you provide about the child is accurate; and
• you will supervise the child's use of the Service appropriately.

Consents and permissions you set for a child (for example around event participation, messaging, photos or payments) control what the child's profile can be used for. When a managed user turns 18, guardian management ends and any consents given on their behalf expire; they can then continue with their own account and give their own consents.

We apply extra protections to children's accounts and data, described in the Privacy Policy. Guardians can ask us to remove content that identifies their child (section 11).

5. Clubs, Teams and Organizers

Anyone with an account can create events, and clubs/teams/groups have admins, owners and other roles (such as head coach, treasurer or welfare officer). In these Terms, "organizer" means anyone who creates or administers a club, team, group or event.

If you are an organizer, you are responsible for what you organize. In particular, you must:

• provide honest, accurate information about your club and events (time, place, price, level, what is included);
• comply with the laws and rules that apply to your activities — including safeguarding requirements for working with children (such as your national governing body's rules, background checks where required, and appropriate adult-to-child supervision), health and safety, and insurance appropriate to your activities;
• only add people to rosters, events or invitations with a proper basis — do not add someone's details (including a child's) without their consent or their guardian's consent;
• use member information you can see through the Service only for running your club or event, not for marketing or any unrelated purpose;
• have the right to collect any money you charge (section 7 and 8), and honour what you sold; and
• deal fairly with your members, including handling refund requests in line with your stated policy and the law.

Club roles carry real-world responsibility. Appointing a welfare officer, coach or treasurer in Spike does not transfer any of the club's own legal duties to us.

6. Events and Physical Activity

Events on Spike are created and run by their organizers, not by us. The organizer (and the venue) — not Spike — is responsible for the event itself: its safety, supervision, equipment, first-aid arrangements, insurance, and compliance with applicable rules. We do not inspect venues, verify coaching qualifications, or supervise activities.

We are not responsible for what happens at events or between users off the platform. Any claim arising from participation in an event is a matter between you, the organizer and/or the venue.

Important: this section allocates responsibility between you, organizers and us. It does not exclude or limit any liability we have to you for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded by law (section 19). Agreeing to these Terms is not, by itself, acceptance of any risk created by our negligence.

Training content on the Service (drills, plans, exercises) is general information, not professional or medical advice. Exercise judgment — ideally under qualified supervision — when using it.

7. Event Payments

Organizers can charge for events. When you pay for an event through Spike, you are paying the organizer (or their club); Spike provides the payment facility and is not the seller of the event. Payments are processed by Stripe; we do not store your card details.

• Prices and service fee. The organizer sets the event price. We add a service fee — currently 7% of the price with a minimum of £0.50 — which is shown separately at checkout before you pay. Prices are currently in pounds sterling (GBP).
• Completing payment. For paid events your place is held for 15 minutes while you complete payment; if payment is not completed, the place is released.
• Cash events. Organizers may choose to collect payment in cash at the event instead. Spike only records this; we do not handle cash payments.
• Refunds and cancellations. Refunds for events are the organizer's responsibility and follow the organizer's stated policy and your legal rights. If an event is cancelled or materially changed, ask the organizer first; refunds are returned to the original payment method. We may assist with processing refunds but we do not decide them for organizers. Nothing in this section limits your statutory rights against the seller.
• Taxes. Organizers are responsible for any tax due on what they charge.

If you receive payments as an organizer

• You must complete onboarding for a Stripe connected account and accept Stripe's Connected Account Agreement. Payouts are made by Stripe to your nominated account.
• You are responsible for refunds, disputed payments and chargebacks relating to what you sold, including Stripe's dispute fees. If refunds or chargebacks create a negative balance, it may be recovered from your future payouts or your nominated account, and we may recover from you any amounts we are required to pay on your behalf.
• We may suspend payment features for suspected fraud, unlawful activity, or breach of these Terms.

8. Club Membership Subscriptions

Clubs can collect recurring membership dues through Spike. The club sets the plan and price; the price you see is the total you pay. Spike receives a service fee from the club's share. Subscriptions are paid by card via Stripe and are an arrangement between you and your club.

• Renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the interval shown when you subscribe, until cancelled. The renewal price and interval are always shown before you commit.
• Cancelling. You can cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then. No further payments are taken after cancellation.
• 14-day cooling-off. If you cancel within 14 days of starting a subscription, you receive a full refund of that payment. After a cooling-off refund, you may need to wait up to 30 days before re-subscribing to the same plan.
• Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, the club may treat your membership as lapsed.

Clubs are responsible for delivering the membership benefits they offer; Spike is not a party to the membership itself.

9. Your Content

"Content" means anything you post or upload to the Service: posts, comments, polls, messages, photos, videos, documents, profile information, drills, plans and similar material.

You own your content. We claim no ownership of it. So that we can run the Service, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for technical purposes such as resizing and formatting), display and distribute your content — only as needed to operate, provide and improve the Service, including through the service providers who host and deliver it for us. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except that (a) copies may persist for a limited time in backups, (b) content may remain where the law requires us to keep it, and (c) messages and shared material may remain visible to the people you sent them to, in anonymised form where your account has been deleted.

Your content is visible according to where you post it — for example to your group, team, club or event participants. Check the context before posting.

When you post content, you promise that:

• it is yours, or you have the rights and permissions needed to share it;
• where it shows identifiable people, you have their consent to share it — and for identifiable children, the consent of a parent or guardian (section 10);
• it complies with section 10 (Acceptable Use) and the law.

If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Service itself, we may use them to improve the Service without restriction or payment; this does not apply to your content.

10. Acceptable Use and Community Standards

Spike is used by families, children and community clubs. We have zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive behaviour. Objectionable content includes: bullying, harassment or intimidation; hate or discrimination against any person or group; threats or glorification of violence; sexual content — with an absolute prohibition on any sexual content involving or directed at minors; content that endangers or exploits a child; graphic violence; and content that is defamatory, deceptive or unlawful.

In addition, you must not:

• contact or attempt to contact a child through the Service other than legitimately as part of the team or club activity the child is involved in — grooming or any predatory behaviour will be reported to authorities;
• post images or videos of identifiable children without the consent of their parent or guardian, or combine a child's image with information that identifies them (full name, school, home area);
• post other people's personal data (contact details, addresses, financial information) without their consent;
• impersonate any person, misrepresent an affiliation, or create accounts under false identities;
• send spam, chain content, or unauthorized advertising, or use the Service to run scams or fraud;
• infringe anyone's intellectual property or other rights;
• interfere with the Service's operation or security: no malware, no probing or circumventing security or access controls, no scraping or bulk data collection, no automated account creation, no excessive load;
• copy, decompile or reverse engineer the Service except where the law permits it despite this restriction; or
• use the Service in breach of applicable law, or encourage anyone else to.

Organizers must also follow section 5. We may set additional written guidelines for specific features; they form part of these Terms.

11. Reporting, Moderation and Enforcement

You can report content or behaviour that concerns you using the reporting tools in the Service (where available for that content type) or by emailing [email protected]. Guardians can use the same routes about content involving their child, including asking us to remove images of their child.

We act on reports. Specifically, we (and, for their own spaces, club and group admins) may:

• review reported content promptly and remove or hide content that breaches section 10 — content that receives multiple reports may be hidden automatically pending review;
• restrict, suspend or permanently remove accounts responsible for objectionable content or abusive behaviour (section 15);
• preserve and share information with law enforcement or safeguarding authorities where we believe someone is at risk or the law requires it.

We do not pre-screen everything posted on the Service and are not obliged to monitor it, but we may do so to enforce these Terms and protect users.

If you think we got a moderation decision wrong — your content was removed or your report was not upheld — contact us at the address above and we will review it.

12. Coaching Tools and Performance Feedback

Coaches can record evaluations and feedback about players, including junior players, using the coaching tools. Feedback is visible to the player only when the coach chooses to share it. Coaches and clubs must use these tools professionally: feedback should be honest, relevant to volleyball development, and appropriate for the player's age — it is subject to section 10 like any other content.

Evaluations reflect the views of the coach who wrote them, not ours. Information about how this data is handled, and how to exercise data-protection rights over it, is in the Privacy Policy.

13. Privacy and Data Protection

Our Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, why, who we share it with (including Stripe for payments), how long we keep it, and your rights — including specific protections for children's data and how guardian consent works.

Remember that profile and participation information is visible to the communities you join (your clubs, teams, groups and events), and organizers can see the information they need to run their activities. Organizers' own use of member data outside the Service is their responsibility (section 5).

14. Intellectual Property and Your Licence to Use Spike

The Service — including its software, design, text, graphics and trademarks (excluding your content and other users' content) — belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws.

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service (including the mobile apps on devices you own or control) for its intended purpose, subject to these Terms. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

15. Suspension and Termination

You can stop using the Service at any time and delete your account (section 16).

We may suspend or restrict your account, remove content, or terminate your account if: you seriously or repeatedly breach these Terms; we reasonably believe your behaviour puts other users (particularly children) at risk; we are required to by law; or you use the Service for fraud or other unlawful activity. For less serious problems we will normally warn you and give you a chance to put things right; for serious harm, safeguarding risk, or legal necessity we may act immediately and without notice.

If we terminate your account for breach, you may not create a new account without our permission. If you believe we have suspended or terminated your account unfairly, contact us and we will review it.

On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 9, 18, 19, 20, 22 and 25) survive.

16. Deleting Your Account

You can delete your account in the app (Settings → Account) or on the website (Account Settings → Danger Zone). Deletion works like this:

• you confirm the request with your password and a confirmation email link;
• a 30-day grace period follows, during which you can sign in and cancel the deletion;
• after the grace period, your account is closed and your personal data is deleted or anonymised across the Service. Records of past activity (for example event attendance or messages you sent) may remain in anonymised form, no longer linked to you;
• some records are kept longer where the law requires — for example payment and financial records (up to 7 years) and security/audit logs — as described in the Privacy Policy;
• if you are the sole owner of a club, you will be asked to transfer ownership (or close the club) before deletion completes.

Guardians can request deletion of a managed child's profile in the same way from their family settings.

17. Service Availability and Changes to the Service

We work to keep Spike available and improving, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. Maintenance, updates and events outside our control may cause interruptions.

We may change, add or withdraw features, and update the apps, over time. If we discontinue the Service or a feature that materially affects you, we will give reasonable notice where practicable — and where you have prepaid for something affected, your section 7 and 8 rights (and your statutory rights) apply.

18. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we do not make promises about the Service beyond those in these Terms — including about content posted by users, events run by organizers, or third-party services we link to. We do not endorse any user, club, event or piece of content.

If you are a consumer, this section does not limit your statutory rights: where the law says a digital service must be provided with reasonable care and skill, that obligation applies to us and is not excluded.

19. Our Liability to You

Subject to that:

• we are not liable for the acts or omissions of other users — including organizers, clubs, coaches and venues — or for events and activities organized through the Service (section 6), or for disputes between users;
• we are not liable for content posted by users, though we will act on reports as described in section 11;
• we are not liable for losses that were not a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms, or for business losses (loss of profit, revenue or business opportunity) where you use the Service in a business capacity; and
• our total liability to you for all claims arising out of the Service in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of (a) £100 and (b) the service fees you paid to us (not amounts paid to organizers or clubs) in that period.

This section reflects a reasonable allocation of risk for a community platform whose core features are free to use.

20. Your Responsibility for Losses You Cause

If a third party brings a claim against us because of (a) content you posted in breach of section 9 or 10, (b) your breach of these Terms, (c) your unlawful use of the Service, or (d) — where you are an organizer — the events, clubs or commercial activities you run through the Service (including claims by your participants or members and any tax liabilities), you agree to compensate us for the losses, damages and reasonable costs we incur as a result.

If you are a consumer, this applies only to losses caused by your breach of these Terms or your unlawful acts, and nothing in it limits your legal rights.

21. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms — for example to reflect new features, legal requirements, or improvements in how we explain things.

• For material changes, we will give you at least 30 days' notice before they take effect, by email and/or a notice in the Service. If you do not agree with a change, you can close your account before it takes effect; continuing to use the Service after that date means the updated Terms apply to you.
• For minor changes (clarifications, typos, feature renames), the updated Terms apply from the "Last updated" date shown at the top.

The current version is always available at this page.

22. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer living elsewhere, you also benefit from any mandatory protections of the law of the country where you live, and nothing in this section takes them away.

The courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms, except that if you are a consumer you may also bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live, and we may only bring proceedings against you as a consumer in the courts of the country where you live.

If you have a problem, please contact us first — most issues can be resolved quickly and informally without going anywhere near a court.

23. Communications and Notices

We communicate with you electronically: by email to your registered address, by push notification, and by notices in the Service. You agree that electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement for communications to be in writing. Legal notices to us should go to the contact address in section 26.

We send service emails (such as verification, security, payment and account-lifecycle messages) that are part of operating your account and cannot be opted out of while you hold an account. You can control non-essential notifications per category and channel in your notification settings. We do not send marketing email.

24. Mobile Apps and App Stores

If you download our apps from Apple's App Store or Google Play, the following applies in addition to these Terms:

• These Terms are between you and us only — not with Apple Inc. or Google LLC — and Apple and Google are not responsible for the app or its content.
• We, not Apple or Google, are solely responsible for the app: its maintenance and support, any product warranties (to the extent not disclaimed), addressing claims relating to the app (including product liability, regulatory compliance and consumer-protection claims), and investigating and resolving any third-party claim that the app infringes intellectual property rights.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app. If the app fails to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple may refund the purchase price (if any); Apple has no other warranty obligation.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a relevant government embargo and are not on any government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as they relate to the iOS app, and may enforce them against you.
• Your use of the apps must also comply with the applicable store's terms of service.

25. General Terms

• Entire agreement. These Terms (with the documents they refer to) are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. This does not exclude liability for fraudulent statements.
• Severability. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor of the Service (for example in a reorganization or sale), provided your rights under these Terms are not reduced as a result.
• Events beyond our control. We are not responsible for delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control.
• No partnership. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, agency or employment relationship between you and us.

26. Contact Us