FA in diversity push

LONDON: The Football Association has launched a drive to increase ethnic and gender diversity at the top levels of English football.

More than 40 clubs across the Premier League, Football League, Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship have signed up to its Football Leadership Diversity Code. They include 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs. Southampton held back, saying it supported the idea but first wanted to see how the code and the Premier League Equality Standard would work in practice.

One of the code’s main aims is for clubs to move away from recruitment practices focused on personal networks, which the FA described as a ‘‘longstanding challenge’’ that had limited diversity in leadership.

Avoiding outright quotas, the code instead sets out hiring ‘‘targets’’, chief among them that 15% of new hires for senior leadership and team operation roles be black, Asian or mixedheritage, while 30% of new hires for these roles should be female.

Clubs will be allowed to set their own targets based on local demographics.

For normal coaching jobs, the target for men’s clubs is for 25% of new hires to be black, Asian or mixedheritage, while for senior coaching roles it is 10%. Half the new coaching hires at women’s clubs will be female while 15% will be black, Asian or of mixedheritage, the code says. — Reuters