Discrimination in Football

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, deplore the acts that have led to this Statement. I would like to draw the attention of the House to an article published in December in the Independent by Jonathan Liew. It talks about two forms of discrimination at play in football, one of which is the violent public acts that we have been discussing, while the other is what he calls an “insidious, unacknowledged bias”. He goes on to list any number of examples of unofficial comments and off-the-cuff remarks, which are often explained away as banter but which, as he says, are on a,

“sliding scale from ‘raise of the eyebrows’ to ‘offence under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006’”.

Research, particularly that from Loughborough University, shows the extent to which processes and practices have impacted on limiting minority access to and involvement in the senior organisational tiers of the game. While the six action points set out in the Statement are absolutely laudable, none except perhaps the one mentioned by the Minister on recruitment procedures really addresses the fundamental issue of institutional bias. Does the Minister agree that there is indeed an issue of institutional racism to be addressed? If so, what steps are being taken on that? Finally, are there any examples of lessons to be learned from other areas of public life in which institutional bias has been tackled effectively?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with the noble Baroness that institutional bias is often present. It is easy to tackle the overt and obvious instance of racism, but institutional bias is more complicated and insidious. As I explained to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we are trying to deal with that to an extent by seeking to get wider representation and greater diversity not only among players but among the staff and management of football. One of the outputs of the round table is to look at the measures to improve the flow of information through instant reporting and the responses made to players, as well as to encourage positive behaviour and ensure that everyone—match officials, stewarding operations, coaching and, most important, football academy staff—is fully aware of their responsibilities in this matter.