How do highlight videos on expressions of interest work?

An applicant can show you their football two ways on your club's expression of interest form: by pasting a link (YouTube, Veo, Hudl and similar), or by uploading the video file itself. The upload option exists for the families who film on a phone and have nowhere to put the footage — historically the ones who left the video field blank and were reviewed on text alone.

Both kinds appear under Highlights in the same sidebar, wherever you review expressions of interest:

• Club administrators and technical directors — Recruitment → EOIs inside a programme.
• Coaches, goalkeeper coaches and video analysts who have been given recruitment access — Recruitment → EOIs in your own portal, on the same menu as your squads. You do not need an admin login for this.

The review sidebar is the same in both places, so the rest of this article applies whichever one you use. The difference is what sits beside it: a scout board and the club's pipeline for full recruitment access, the inbox on its own for someone given EOI review only.

• Up to 500 MB — a few minutes of phone-recorded 1080p.
• Up to 5 minutes long. This is a highlights reel, not a full match.
• MP4, MOV and the other common phone and camera formats. iPhone footage works, including HEVC.

A file that is too large or is not a video is refused on their device, before anything is sent — so a family on mobile data is told immediately rather than after a long upload.

The upload starts after the form is submitted, on the confirmation screen. This is deliberate: by the time any video bytes move, the application is saved and the confirmation email is on its way.

The consequence worth knowing when a family calls: an upload that fails never costs them their application. A dropped connection, a closed tab, or a phone going flat leaves you with a complete expression of interest and no video — the family is told exactly that, and asked to reply to their confirmation email with a link instead.

An uploaded video shows a poster frame with the duration on it, and loads only when you press play. Everything else you might see means something specific:

That last one matters: it is not the same as "no video". The family did send one.

These are videos of children, so they are not kept indefinitely. Every night Clubhouse deletes uploaded videos where:

• the expression of interest is not shortlisted, and
• 12 months have passed since you reviewed it — or since it was submitted, if it was never reviewed.

Marking an applicant Shortlist in the sidebar keeps their video for as long as they stay shortlisted. Nothing else about the expression of interest is deleted: the applicant's details, your review status and their pipeline history all remain. Only the video file goes, and the sidebar says so where the video used to be.

Only staff with recruitment access to that club, which is the same permission that lets you open the expression of interest in the first place — whether you review from the admin portal or from your coach portal. Uploaded videos are not publicly viewable and have no shareable URL — each play is authorised individually, and the link expires. If you need to send footage to someone outside that group, ask the applicant for a link they control.

• "Can I send a video after submitting?" — Not on the form. Ask them to reply to their confirmation email with a link.
• "Did my video arrive?" — The confirmation screen tells them at the time. In the sidebar you can see it yourself; "still processing" means yes.
• "Can you delete my video?" — Yes. Dismiss the expression of interest and it is removed on the retention clock, or ask your club administrator to remove it sooner.