The FA’s Inclusion Advisory Board met this week for its annual update on progress and discussions with the football bodies contributing to the work of English Football’s Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Action Plan.
FA CEO Martin Glenn attended the session, with The Football League, the League Managers Association, the Professional Footballers’ Association, Professional Game Match Officials and Kick It Out shared updates on a range of innovative work aimed at tackling discrimination, fostering increased equality and inclusion and providing career pathways for minority groups.
“The range of the work in this field is so impressive’” said chair Heather Rabbatts, “and there is an increased sense of collaboration between the different groups driving this agenda as a whole, which is building momentum.”
“The Football League’s Playing for Inclusion workshops, its upcoming disability access focused activity with Level Playing Field and its ongoing Code of Practice for Clubs are great examples of best practice.
"The PFA shared activity on its equality and diversity workshops for players, whilst the LMA shared how training and support through Kick It Out was helping with the ongoing engagement with their members and how the LMA now has three female board members (50%), which is a huge boost for our wider work in making football boards more diverse.”
“PGMOL conveyed its commitment to supporting female referees at the top of the game and The FA updated on the ‘State of Play’ equality monitoring tool which was recently piloted with the Football and some of their clubs, the progress being with establishing The FA’s Women’s Leadership Programme, positive strides being made through the COACH bursary programme and that there have now been 6 appointments of graduates from the On Board programme on to Boards.
“The campaign groups continue to play their part, with version two of Kick It Out’s reporting app due out soon, including the ability to upload film and audio evidence. Its mentoring and scholars training continues to pay dividends too.”
The IAB meets again in October.
