Discrimination in Football

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness Taylor of Bolton

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

On that subject, a representative of Level Playing Field was also at the round table.

I take the noble Lord’s point. I will read the 1998 report he referred to again, but I am sure it is relevant. We should be aware that there have been big changes over 20 years, not only in sport and football. You can tell that by looking at some 1980s and 1990s television programmes. It is amazing what was considered normal in those days but, as I said earlier, we are not complacent about this. That is why the Minister for Sport convened this round table at fairly short notice and included representatives of all parts of the game, plus the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and several NGOs involved in discrimination of all sorts. We are determined to take note of the sort of things the noble Lord is saying and deal with them quickly.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley. I remember the start of Kick It Out, as do many noble Lords. It had an immediate impact, and I think many of us thought that that progress would continue and that the success of black players would help counter racism. Alas, that does not seem to have been the case. The Minister said that football does not cause racism, and that is worth remembering, but we have to take on board the lack of leadership from the top in countering racism. That applies to racism, homophobia and many of the problems that exist. The Minister acknowledges that culture is important; I ask him to bear in mind that the leadership of football in this country is a somewhat limited group of mainly white, mainly middle-aged—maybe that is being polite—men. Middle-aged white men dominating the control of that game have not produced the kind of progress that we need in issues of this kind.

There are many other problems in football, as my noble friend on the Woolsack and I know, such as the fit and proper person test and other issues, but the governance of football really needs to be looked at again. I urge the Minister not only to encourage rapid progress along the lines that he has suggested, but to get the Government to look again at whether the governance of football in this country is in a satisfactory state.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I mentioned some statistics about diversity and I completely agree with the noble Baroness. I take her point. It will obviously take a bit longer than some of the other immediate things that we were talking about, but I do not disagree. I particularly agree about leadership from the football authorities. One thing that we are looking at is how leading players can be involved in taking leadership positions. In many cases they have a hero status and can be very useful. They can tell stories from their own experience and several players have already shown great courage in doing that. I take the noble Baroness’s remarks to heart and will take them back to the department to the Sports Minister.