Kick It Out hit as another trustee quits
Board at risk of having no black footballers Chairman vote exposes huge divisions in charity
A second Kick It Out trustee yesterday confirmed he had quit – and a third could soon follow – in the wake of Sanjay Bhandari’s appointment as its new chairman.
A day after The Daily Telegraph revealed that Garth Crooks had quit over Bhandari being named head of English football’s anti-discrimination watchdog, former Fulham midfielder Udo Onwere told this newspaper he had stepped down. And in a move that could leave the charity without any black former footballers on its board, former Swindon player and manager Iffy Onuora also revealed he “might be ready” to leave.
Kick It Out has been plunged into fresh turmoil following the resignations of Crooks and Onwere, something that has exposed deep divisions within the organisation about how best to combat the rise in racist abuse of black players, including on social media.
Matters came to a head during the recruitment of a replacement for founding chairman Lord Ouseley, who quit earlier this year after a quarter of a century in charge.
Crooks and Onuora, part of a four-strong interview panel tasked with finding that replacement, wanted to appoint Brendon Batson, the trailblazing ex-west Bromwich Albion defender, to provide an immediate direct line to current players. But they and Onwere were outvoted after the board of trustees – plus an independent panel chair – was forced to choose between the pair, with Bhandari emerging victorious by four votes to three.
As well as the board being split down the middle between ex-pros and non-ex-pros, all three black trustees voted for Batson to lead an organisation originally founded in the wake of racist abuse they themselves had suffered while playing.
It can also be revealed that the board which voted was one member short following the resignation in December of Rimla Ahktar, who was replaced by Cindy Butts, of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, in the same interview process that saw Bhandari appointed.
She now becomes Kick It Out’s sole independent trustee after the exits of Crooks and Onwere.
Onwere, who retrained as a lawyer after retiring from football in 2000, yesterday said he had quit after almost five years “mainly” as a result of his current workload.
Onuora, the Professional Footballers’ Association representative on the board, said he might step down, stressing he would do so because he had spent five years in the role rather than in protest over the snubbing of Batson.
But he said: ‘‘I certainly have sympathy with Garth. He speaks very passionately about Kick It Out and that lineage to the past and I guess we see things quite similarly.”
In resigning, Crooks warned Kick It Out not to “leave racial discrimination behind” in its “quest to fight all discrimination”.
That prompted senior figures in the fight against bigotry in football to question whether divisions within the organisation would have emerged if it was funded to operate properly on all fronts, something that would require the Football Association, Premier League, English Football League and PFA to contribute far more than the £800,000 per year they do currently.
Responding to Onwere’s departure, Kick It Out said: “Udo has played a vital role in our work as a trustee and everyone at the Kick It Out thanks him for all his efforts in tackling discrimination in football. Further announcements regarding the recruitment of additional trustees will be made in due course. In the meantime, we are focused on continuing to campaign against all forms of discrimination in football – at every level of the game.”