A growing personal claims culture among footballers has contributed to the North Riding County FA proposing a change in its legal status.

That was the opinion of county FA secretary Mark Jarvis, who stressed the move was also intended to make the association a more professional outfit.

The annual general meeting of member clubs tomorrow will vote on a proposal to turn the county FA into a limited company by guarantee, a move designed to limit the liability of clubs against a personal claim made through the courts by a player.

If the vote is favourable, the county FA would change its structure to have a board of nine directors and a council, and while most of the committees would stay the same, the finance and administration departments would amalgamate.

"The national FA is a limited company and most other county FAs around the country are limited companies," said Jarvis.

"It puts you on a more professional basis, though the main reason to do it would be to limit the liability of clubs.

"If we had to pay out a sum of money, we could, if we were a limited company, limit by law the liability of every single member club to £10. We do take out insurance but there are more and more claims and more and more litigations and we want to make sure we are watertight."

He added: "There are hundreds of reasons why it's a good idea to do it. We are becoming more pro-active in the football field and employing more people and this would put the county FA on a more professional footing and help make sure it's run properly.

"We've been thinking about if for about three years and it's taken a good year to get all the proposal down on paper."

Updated: 09:21 Tuesday, June 19, 2001