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0 The Football Association is expected to finalise a new rule in time for the start of the new season making workforce diversity reporting a mandatory requirement for professional football clubs.
The FA’s Football Leadership Diversity Code promised “to drive diversity and inclusion” across the game when it was launched almost four years ago with the aim of increasing equality of opportunities.
But that has not materialised with the 53 professional clubs collectively signed up to the code by the end of last year failing to meet any of the eight hiring targets set the previous season.
It appears that has prompted the governing body to try and implement mandatory reporting – with the FA telling Sky Sports News that discussions have been held about this with stakeholders from the Premier League, EFL, Barclays Women’s Super League and Barclays Women’s Championship.
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Former FA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Director Edleen John told Sky Sports News in 2021 that the Football Leadership Diversity Code would increase ‘accessibility and transparency’ in the game
The Football Association Board has already agreed in principle to create a new FA Rule making it mandatory for all professional clubs in the English leagues to provide full workforce data on age, sex, gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation within their organisation.
The FA also participated in the Race Representation Index (RRI) for the first time this year, finishing 18th out of 92 sports National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and organisations taking part.
Sky Sports News revealed during Black History Month in 2021 that the Sport Monitoring Advisory Panel of current and former athletes were launching the RRI with race equality charity Sporting Equals, scoring the progress of sports bodies towards the inclusion of diverse ethnic communities, examining workforce diversity, policy and strategy, and representation at national team level.
Reflecting on the FA’s participation in the RRI, Sporting Equals chief executive Arun Kang OBE told Sky Sports News: “It’s fantastic to see the FA come on board with the Race Representation Index in its third year, because it’s really important for all NGBs to understand the importance of collecting data.
“But it’s not just about collecting it, it’s what you do with that data, using it to identify gaps, and then making specific interventions for specific communities.
“We know for example South Asian communities in football for example are low in numbers at a higher level, so hopefully the RRI will support NGBs to make accurate and specific interventions.”
FA ‘must work a lot harder’ to create pool of diverse England candidates
Meanwhile, the FA has been told it must “work a lot harder” to ensure there are realistic candidates from racially diverse backgrounds to manage the England men’s team in the future.
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Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville share their view on what’s next for Gareth Southgate after he resigned from the England managerial role
The national governing body has stated its intention to run an open recruitment process to find Gareth Southgate’s successor, and earlier this month published the criteria it was looking for in the right candidate.
There is currently just one Black-British manager out of the 92 clubs in the top four tiers of English football – Darren Moore at Port Vale in League Two.
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Making a Manager interview: Darren Moore speaks about his career so as a manager in English football
Data published by the Black Footballers Partnership (BFP) last year found 43 per cent of Premier League players were Black, but that just 4.4 per cent of managerial and coaching positions were held by Black people – 57 out of 1,304 positions.
The BFP’s co-founder Delroy Corinaldi has previously ascribed that disparity to a “glass ceiling” facing Black players said: “Any England manager needs to be selected from the deepest talent pool of the best managers available. The fans would expect nothing less, and the same for Black footballers.
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A review of the game by the Black Footballers Partnership found there was less than a 1 per cent increase in the number of Black former players hired in managerial and executive roles within the game over the a 12-month period
“The problem for the game is that while the England talent pool of white ex-players has a deep end of 96 per cent of managers, the talent pool for Black former players is barely a paddling pool at four per cent of managers, which is difficult to comprehend when the number of Black footballers in the Premier League stands at 43 per cent.
“The FA has to work a lot harder to help deepen that pool of Black former players transitioning to management to ensure next time around talk of a diverse panel looks better than tokenistic virtue signalling.
“BFP stands ready to work with the FA to deliver this change but this requires a sincere commitment to do so.”
British South Asians in Football
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