FA leadership-diversity-code why did we not sign up for this.

[HUFC1885]

“4. In October 2020 the FA launched Leadership Diversity which 40 out of the 92 Clubs signed up to, Exeter did not sign up, if you where a Trustee would you looked to have signed Exeter City to the code.”

Football Leadership Diversity Code launched to drive more inclusion in English game

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www.thefa.com

I see one of the Questions to candidates in the Trust Election just wondering why we would not have signed up.

 

[iscalad]

I seem to remember a thread/discussion on the subject

 

[jrg333]

By signing up to the Football Leadership Diversity Code, clubs pledge to create an equality, diversity and inclusion plan which applies hiring targets while adopting specific recruitment principles. The targets, which will become effective immediately, include:-

SENIOR LEADERSHIP AND TEAM OPERATIONS
• 15% of new hires will be Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage [or a target set by the club based on local demographics]
• 30% of new hires will be female

COACHING: MEN’S PROFESSIONAL CLUBS
• 25% of new hires will be Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage
• 10% of new senior coaching hires will be Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage

COACHING: WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL CLUBS
• 50% of new hires will be female
• 15% of new hires will be Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage

RECRUITMENT
• Shortlists for interview will have at least one male and one female Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage candidate, if applicants meeting the job specifications apply.

Why on Earth would anyone want us to sign up to something which guarantees the club has lower quality applicants by removing qualified candidates because they have the 'wrong' skin colour?

We should avoid all of this divisive, racist nonsense as far as possible. If anyone believes that we are turning down the best candidates to give people a job because they are white, they need their head examined. Likewise, if anyone believes that society will improve by removing meritocracy from recruitment processes, they need their head examined. This is not progress; this is the re-racialisation of society; something we should all stand against.

It warms my heart to see that we are not on the list of signatories while Plymouth are. Let them hamstring themselves by excluding good candidates on the basis of skin colour! History does not judge people who think jobs should be given out on the basis of skin colour kindly. We have countless examples...

 

[WXF]

Numerous studies show that when fictitious job applications are submitted of an equal quality, those asigned with an ethnic minority sounding name are less likely to receive an interview invitation and then, at the interview stage, non-white people are less likely to be awarded a job. People who are members of an ethic or/and racial minority face bigger barriers at many of the biggest hurdles in life. Pretending to be colour blind, when people experience disadvantage because of racial heritage, doesn’t overcome but helps sustains the problem.

Football is a popular sport amongst black Britons, yet disproportionately few fill coaching and other leadership roles, and very few Black people attend football matches. This should be no surprise given that racists still try to exploit football culture to normalise their views. Football has a massive racial diversity problem. I think for many who care about that posts like yours only make positive discrimination measures seem more proportionate and justified.

 

[jrg333]

Football has a massive racial diversity problem.

Please be specific here. Ethnic minorities and black people in particular are massively over-represented in football compared to their proportion of the population. What you've said is laughably false without more context. Please provide it.

Numerous studies show that when fictitious job applications are submitted of an equal quality, those asigned with an ethnic minority sounding name are less likely to receive an interview invitation and then, at the interview stage, non-white people are less likely to be awarded a job.

So we replace historical discrimination with contemporary discrimination until when exactly?

It's such childish thinking to imagine that racism of the 70s will somehow be 'undone' by actively excluding people in the 2020s from jobs due to their skin colour. Given that you can already look at a sport where black people are massively over-represented and falsely claim there is a 'racial diversity problem,' I have serious concerns about when this process of 'positive discrimination' will ever end.

I suspect that it will not be until the day that your son or daughter tells you that they were turned down for a job because a less qualified non-white person applied that you and others might finally see the error which is inherent in your solutions.

I repeat, history does not look kindly on those who think jobs should be handed out on the basis of race rather than qualifications. No matter how you dress it up, positive discrimination is still discrimination and it should be opposed wherever we find it. Thanks goodness it is Plymouth rather than Exeter on that list of signatories. Let them hire people just because they have the right skin tone while we sweep up the more qualified applicants

 

[sign of the chimes]

Numerous studies show that when fictitious job applications are submitted of an equal quality, those asigned with an ethnic minority sounding name are less likely to receive an interview invitation and then, at the interview stage, non-white people are less likely to be awarded a job. People who are members of an ethic or/and racial minority face bigger barriers at many of the biggest hurdles in life. Pretending to be colour blind, when people experience disadvantage because of racial heritage, doesn’t overcome but helps sustains the problem.

Football is a popular sport amongst black Britons, yet disproportionately few fill coaching and other leadership roles, and very few Black people attend football matches. This should be no surprise given that racists still try to exploit football culture to normalise their views. Football has a massive racial diversity problem. I think for many who care about that posts like yours only make positive discrimination measures seem more proportionate and justified.

I think the term 'positive discrimination' is a really unfortunate one, which has been easy for people to weaponise - a bit like 'political correctness'.

We've relatively recently switched to blind shortlisting where I work, which means that certain stuff that could lead to subconscious bias (like names) is taken out of the equation at that point in the selection process. I do a fair bit of interviewing, etc. and in that short time it's been noticeable that there has been a greater diversity of candidate across a number of characterstics - it's a small sample so it could be coincidencental at this stage - but interesting to observe nonetheless.

I've been involved with an increasing amount of work around race and equality in my (I thought, relatively right-on) organisaton over the past couple of years and, as a (I thought, relatively right-on) white bloke, I've listened to a lot of first hand testimony from non-white colleagues and customers which has really made me question my own behaviours and those of the organisation across all of our activity; including, but not limited to, recruitment and selection. It's been really, really challenging at times as when confronted with certain behaviours, the natural instinct is to try and justify them - but the benefit, however uncomfortable, has been realising how and where I may have been contributing to problems.

Regarding the leadership diversity code - this thread was the first I'd seen of this initiative - and I was pleasantly surprised to see my club has signed up. I expect it will wind some of our support up - but if it goes some way to delivering equality of opportunity then I genuinely can't see why anyone would have a problem with it.

 

[Matt Phillips]

Ethnic minorities and black people in particular are massively over-represented in football compared to their proportion of the population.

I'm not sure many of the Asian communities in the UK would agree with this...

You see corrective actions taken in many places to encourage better practice. For example, long term subsidies to encourage investment in green energy, and short term initiatives, such as the current proposals to bail out manufacturers operating in the gas supply chain.

What's this got to do with discrimination...? Well, sometimes markets, or people, don't behave as you want them to, based on historic practices, ignorance, or bias - and governments/regulators need to step in to correct.

Personally, I think some positive discrimination, like "The Rooney Rule" (not Wayne!) is still needed in society, but hopefully this is only a short term fix until the "market" corrects. I acknowledge the view that implementing something like this might create a barrier, which could hold back some of the better candidates, but how can the potential of people from minority groups be realised if they're not afforded the opportunity to succeed? I can see reasons why the Club didn't sign up to the diversity code (explained more in my responses for the Trust election), but the most recent appointments to the Club Board - 4 middle aged white men - do raise questions in my mind around how seriously they're taking diversity, and it would be nice to know how the Club plans to improve this at Board level.

 

[sign of the chimes]

Please be specific here. Ethnic minorities and black people in particular are massively over-represented in football compared to their proportion of the population. What you've said is laughably false without more context. Please provide it.

This code about leadership roles. The proportion of BAME players may or may not be over-representative in relation to society (I've not looked at the data); but agree there have certainly been a significant proportion playing professionally over the past 20-30 years.

So, the next quesstion is, how does that translate in terms of the proportion of those players ending up in management and coaching roles? I'm pretty sure at various points in the last 10 years (i.e. the era that those players would likely transition in to such roles) that there have been no more than two or three such managers in the 92.

Assuming your assertion about ethnic minorty/black people is correct in relation to those playing the game - the lack of those progressing to leadership roles beyond it would suggest there being an institutional problem that needs addressing.

 

[WXF]

Please be specific here. Ethnic minorities and black people in particular are massively over-represented in football compared to their proportion of the population. What you've said is laughably false without more context. Please provide it.

So we replace historical discrimination with contemporary discrimination until when exactly?

It's such childish thinking to imagine that racism of the 70s will somehow be 'undone' by actively excluding people in the 2020s from jobs due to their skin colour. Given that you can already look at a sport where black people are massively over-represented and falsely claim there is a 'racial diversity problem,' I have serious concerns about when this process of 'positive discrimination' will ever end.

I suspect that it will not be until the day that your son or daughter tells you that they were turned down for a job because a less qualified non-white person applied that you and others might finally see the error which is inherent in your solutions.

I repeat, history does not look kindly on those who think jobs should be handed out on the basis of race rather than qualifications. No matter how you dress it up, positive discrimination is still discrimination and it should be opposed wherever we find it. Thanks goodness it is Plymouth rather than Exeter on that list of signatories. Let them hire people just because they have the right skin tone while we sweep up the more qualified applicants

The law only permits a very limited kind of positive discrimination. An employer may discriminate in favour of an applicant with a protected characteristic when they and another candidate are deemed to be as qualified as each other (a bit abstract, but there you go) and when participation of people of the relevant protected group is disproportionately low. Once that is resolved, there wouldn't be a justification for any more positive discrimination, which would be illegal. To suggest it’s instead a thin end of the wedge is scaremongering.

Clubs signing up to the FA's diversity code appear amongst other things to be engaging in positive action, which is legal (such as an employer actively encouraging applicants from an underrepresented group). It may not also be the case that many are engaging in positive discrimination.

Would find it easier to believe you were arguing in good faith if you didn’t dismiss evidence about the lived experience of people from racial minorities today. If you are offended by racial discrimination, you should also be offended at how inaccessible many non-white people find football. If you genuinely can't recognise there is a big diversity problem, you're not looking hard enough.

 

[HUFC1885]

The law only permits a very limited kind of positive discrimination. An employer may discriminate in favour of an applicant with a protected characteristic when they and another candidate are deemed to be as qualified as each other (a bit abstract, but there you go) and when participation of people of the relevant protected group is disproportionately low. Once that is resolved, there wouldn't be a justification for any more positive discrimination, which would be illegal. To suggest it’s instead a thin end of the wedge is scaremongering.

Clubs signing up to the FA's diversity code appear amongst other things to be engaging in positive action, which is legal (such as an employer actively encouraging applicants from an underrepresented group). It may not also be the case that many are engaging in positive discrimination.

Would find it easier to believe you were arguing in good faith if you didn’t dismiss evidence about the lived experience of people from racial minorities today. If you are offended by racial discrimination, you should also be offended at how inaccessible many non-white people find football. If you genuinely can't recognise there is a big diversity problem, you're not looking hard enough.

So do you think by not signing up to the code we are part of the problem “Institutionally racist” or
“systemic racist” as a club towards non playing employment opportunities at management and director level.