#Football Booster #This article was published in The Guardian by Sanjay Bhandari, chairman of Kick It Out, an anti-discrimination organisation in British football
Crystal Palace manager Vieira
According to business guru Jim Collins, the process from being a good organization to being a great organization is built on the willingness of leaders to face hard truths. Without this foundation, productive change is not possible. How does football's affirmative action journey measure this standard? Is football fully confronted with the harsh reality of inequality in the game? Do we be honest with facts that make us uncomfortable, or do we soothe ourselves with comfortable false reality?
Recent data suggest that stubborn historical problems remain. Black Football Partnership revealed last week that only 4.4 per cent of England's managers are black, compared to 43 per cent and 34 per cent of Premier League and EFL players respectively. PFA figures show that although 7-10% of the UK's total population is South Asian, only 0.45% of professional footballers are South Asian (around 0.9% in youth training).
In the aftermath of George Floyd's tragic death in 2020, organizations competed to demonstrate their commitment to equality. Under the supervision of the FA, English football has introduced the Football Leadership Diversity Code (FLDC), with more than 50 clubs and organisations pledging to achieve racial and gender representation targets for new recruits to lead and coach Kozen. Football is committed to tackling structural inequalities. Two years on, how is the work going?
Looking at this year's FLDC report, it is encouraging that football institutions (FA, Premier League and EFL) are leading by example and achieving the 7/8 target. The concern is that only 2/8 of the target has been achieved at club level, and it will have to be continued to work hard.
For many from underrepresented or minority communities, much of the past 50 years has been a frustrating cycle of promise, hope, and disappointment. Football is at a critical juncture and the right choices need to be made so that FLDC does not become the latest entry in the catalogue of missed opportunities in almost 50 years, turning what was initially positive intentions into resentment and mistrust. If the collective energy and momentum generated by George Floyd's death has been exhausted, what will drive sustained change?
One might instinctively say "unity", but clubs also need to face the hard truth, which requires courage and thorough transparency.
QPR Club Director of Football Les Ferdinand
Most of the problems are systemic. QPR's director of football, Les Ferdinand, revealed last week that he was skeptical of FLDC because it was voluntary. I believe transparency is a disinfectant. My experience in other industries is that putting real data in the hands of public scrutiny drives change. The requirement to publish data on the gender pay gap or representation on race boards has driven some of the changes in the UK business world. In discussions around setting FLDC goals, I suggested that football needs to provide full transparency of the entire workforce (rather than an overview of the new hires section, which will only give partial and potentially misleading information).
Rice and I faced the same potential obstacles. Because football is unregulated, none of these organisations have the statutory authority to require transparency reporting or set representative goals. All authorities in football are member organizations, so rule changes require the consent of members, especially clubs. A common fear among clubs is that the resulting league tables show those who are good or bad in terms of diversity. Fearful of being in the lower half of any such table, most clubs cannot agree to fully challenge public transparency or half-truths of a conassuring nature.
Fragmented and opaque data is prevalent in football and applies equally to discrimination reports, recruitment shortlists, talent development programs and root cause analysis of fan behaviour. For a sport so proficient in generating data insights on the court, the lack of data insights in off-court areas is obvious.
Football clubs are traditional community assets and therefore should be held accountable to the communities they claim to represent. Football authorities are managers, not regulators. As part of the fan-led review of English football, we highlighted our view in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 9 that any independent regulator operating a club's licensing system should have the power to oversee club management. This would give any regulator the same powers as other industry regulators. We urge the government to keep its promise to publish a white paper on fan-led censorship as soon as possible and to empower regulators with appropriate powers.
“Kick It Out”主席Sanjay Bhandari
Regulation takes time. At the same time, unless we know where we started and how far we have traveled, how can we know how far we have come on the road to equality? Much of this data is collected against the Premier League's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion criteria and the FLDC – it just hasn't been published. But an unpublished collection is like a secret promise to yourself that in the new year, you'll join the gym and eventually lose the excess weight you've been carrying since last Christmas. It's much less likely to keep a promise than a promise made out loud to someone else.
Football has the unique power to be a catalyst for social change. The FLDC cannot be allowed to become another wasted opportunity to create an affirmative action league.