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CALL: Lord Ouseley

LORD HERMAN Ouseley, chair and founder of Kick It Out, has written an analysis of discrimination and exclusion in football in England to feature in the programme for Kick It Out’s 20 year anniversary dinner on May 20.

The respected Lord Ouseley focuses on the need for leadership and responsibility from the key decision-makers in football, and looks at the continued presence of discrimination in the game.

The analysis is separated into five sections, entitled ‘Power + Prejudice = Discrimination’, ‘Different Realities: 1993-2014’, ‘Awareness Raising Realities’, ‘Ongoing Challenges’ and the ‘Ultimate Challenge’.

Here are some of the key points made:
Football ‘rarely meeting expectations’ on equality and diversity

Top of the football pyramid remains a bastion of white male domination

Professional football clubs have only a ‘passive interest’ in equality and diversity outcomes

There being ‘little or no interest whatsoever’ in the board rooms or the senior management teams for any high profile equality and diversity activity

Many leaders in football holding the view that there is no longer a race or discrimination problem and it is ‘time for Kick It Out to pack its bags and move on’

The analysis contains statistics relating to the number of complaints Kick It Out has received for the 2013/14 season up to now, and also sees Lord Ouseley reflect on what has been achieved since the campaign’s inception in 1993.

Lord Ouseley concludes by talking about the campaign’s next phase of work and calls on the leaders of football to 'stand up and be counted' on the issue of tackling discrimination by exercising personal, professional and corporate responsibilities.