Custom Roles in Free version

System Information
  • Strapi Version: 4.3.8
  • Operating System: Linux/Ubuntu
  • Database: mysql5.7
  • Node Version:
  • NPM Version:
  • Yarn Version:

Hey guys,
this is my first post so I hope I got the right category.

The Background:
So far I deployed one Strapi Applications succesfully for a small business with their own blog. Now I want to build a nextjs application with strapi cms for a local sports club. They got different sports such as table tennis, tennis, soccer and basketball. They want a website that bundles each sports. At the moment each sport has its own website with a different look and feel.

The Problem:
Each sport wants to have a blog for news and other stuff. They also want to be restricted to their sport, so tennis cannot create posts for basketball for example. This means I have to create more than 3 roles, but with the free version this is not possible. Paying is no option because the costs are too high for them.

My Question:
I can’t create roles through the UI, because it then forwards me to the pricing page of strapi. What I can do is create a role in the database and the strapi application automatically shows it in the UI. I then can assign Users to that role an they are only allowed to interact with the selected collections. Is this allowed since I dont modify their restricted code and because the project is open-source? The database is mine and how strapi handles it is not modified by me.

I really hope you could give me some advice on this.
A side information: In total there are 6 sports and about 2-3 editors for each sport. So 120-180$ per month just for a few posts is way too much.

Greetings,
jofflin