Football’s Black List 2015 is nearly here…

Football’s Black List celebrates achievement and offers inspiration

Football’s Black List will be published by The Voice Newspaper tomorrow.

The initiative pays tribute to members of African and Caribbean communities in the UK for their contribution to the game.

The list is not about achievement on the field as players – instead, it is about what happens off the pitch; in the boardrooms, dugouts, across the media, at grassroots level and in our communities.

The initiative is not about creating further segregation in society – or football. It’s aim is to highlight role models and encourage members from a massively under represented community to get involved in all areas of football – away from the pitch.

On the field more than 25% of professional footballers are black, so the community is therefore over represented and “accepted” as athletes. But off the field, it is a very different story…

• In November 2014, the Sports People’s Think Tank report found just 19 BAME coaches in the top 552 positions
• Less than 1% of all governance and senior administration positions at governing bodies and clubs in England are held by staff from BAME backgrounds
• Not one black sports journalist went to the World Cup in Brazil last year with a mainstream national newspaper
• In broadcasting, just one black sports presenter was involved across all major sporting events last summer in the UK

I could go on…

The Black List is a response to this ongoing situation and hopefully helps to build knowledge about different jobs in the game, while giving due respect and praise to pioneers in the various other areas of football.

To understand why a list celebrating black people is needed, it is essential to acknowledge a history where African and Caribbean communities have been racially abused, marginalised and purposefully excluded from society – and football. It wasn’t easy for black players, and it certainly hasn’t been easy in other areas of the game either.

Some have called the initiative counter productive, as they believe it encourages segregation and separatism. I strongly disagree. I founded this initiative – with Rodney Hinds from The Voice – to do the very opposite. As it challenges the lack of diversity in the football industry by promoting diverse people in roles where many within our communities may feel unwelcome.

Football’s Black List is a proactive initiative that aims to highlight achievement, educate and inspire.

For further reading on the initiative check out the following links:

http://www.farenet.org/news/english-footballs-black-list-achievers/

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2009/aug/10/black-list-voice-football

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7305569.stm

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/daily-mirror-reporter-darren-lewis-3349772