FA lag far behind in ref race..

SEVEN YEARS on from the FA’S vow to increase the number of black referees the drought continues.

The FA’S target back in 2012 was that by the 2015/16 season “10 per cent of the referee workforce is from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, which is reflective of national demographics”.

Reuben Simon, a level 3 ref on the FA’S National list until 2014, fears the numbers will not improve until football’s culture changes.

“I remember going to a senior level 3 Meeting,” he said. “Looking around there were 150 referees in there.

“I didn’t see one black referee.

“In a rural area I’d understand. But if you go to the parks in and around London you will see that they do exist.”

The last high-profile black referee was Uriah Rennie, 53, who quit in 2009 due to injury.

“The trouble is unconscious bias,” said Simon. “Over the last 15 years no chairman in the Premier League or the Football League is used to seeing a black person in authority walk out with the match ball and say: ‘I’m running this match’.

“I know many referees who have said to me: ‘Not once have I been assessed by a black or an Asian guy’. It has always been a white guy of a certain age.”

Knowledgeable and articulate, dreadlocked Simon has had his own run-in with officialdom.

On October 24, 2009 he wrote to the FA asking for a breakdown of the numbers of black and Asian referees in the English game.

A month later, Simon was left bemused by an email sent to his bosses in relation to his handling of a recent game.

“I went to every person who was there and got it in writing that the game went fine. Also my two assistants at the time,” said Simon.

“I wanted to get them to a hearing. But in the end no one came forward.

“It was just another example of the bias.”