Kick It Out faces bullying claims after staff exodus

Kick It Out, the anti-discrimination group, is investigating why twothirds of the charity’s staff have left over the course of just two years. It has lost 10 of its 17-strong workforce since 2016, but the campaign group said last night that it was unaware of reported allegations of bullying.

The claims, detailed in the Daily Mail, come just a week after Lord Ouseley, the Kick It Out founder, announced he was standing down after 25 years at the helm.

According to reports, concerns about management style were expressed in exit interviews and at “senior management team level”, although it is understood the term “bullying” was not specifically used by staff in the interviews.

Responding to the newspaper, Kick It Out said: “In the three years from the beginning of 2016, 10 peo- ple have left Kick It Out – three in 2016, four in 2017 and three in 2018. None of those who opted for an exit interview raised any issues about bullying – though of course we take all such matters extremely seriously – and the information provided by these former members of staff is being reviewed by the trustees of the charity, along with the organisation’s HR [human resources] policies.”

Last week Ouseley, writing in The Daily Telegraph, called on football’s elite to show leadership on racism.

Meanwhile, police are to investigate claims that black youth players at Chelsea in the 1980s and 1990s were subjected to a racist bullying culture.

They will also investigate a claim one youth player was assaulted. Those allegations will be followed up by detectives from the child abuse investigation team based at Northwood police station in northwest London.