FA Refuses to Scrap “Racist” Target for a Third of England’s Coaches to Be Non-White
The Football Association has refused to scrap a “racist” target for almost a third of England’s men’s coaches to be non-white after Suella Braverman branded it “utter woke nonsense”. The Telegraph has more.
Braverman, the former home secretary, who is Reform UK’s Equalities Spokesperson, wrote to Mark Bullingham, the FA Chief Executive, on Tuesday demanding the abolition of a policy she said “divides rather than unites”.
The FA’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy sets a target for 30% of the England men’s coaching staff to be from ethnically diverse backgrounds by 2028.
Posting her letter to Bullingham on X, Braverman said: “The @FA Football Association wants to mandate that one in four football coaches come from a Black, Asian or other minority background.
“As the saying in football goes, this is utter woke nonsense. The game’s gone. Fans don’t care what the coach looks like. They just want the best person for the job, based on merit alone. That’s what gets results. Not tokenism.
“I’ve written to the FA urging a rethink. I’m happy to help them draw up a fairer policy. Let’s kick racism out of football, including anti-white racism.”
Braverman, who in January defected to Reform from the Conservative Party, also wrote in her letter that the policy was “fundamentally flawed, inherently racist and bad for the game”.
She added: “The best coaches should get the job, not because of their skin colour, but because they are the best person for the job.”
The phrase “utter woke nonsense” has become a popular meme among football fans.
An FA spokesperson said in response: “Football has the unique ability to break down barriers and bring communities together. Through our EDI strategy, we aim to ensure the game reflects the full diversity of our nation.
“This means opening up pathways and creating opportunities for people from all backgrounds – including those from historically under-represented groups. While we will always take a meritocratic approach by appointing the best people for roles, we also recognise the importance of having a broader range of participants across the sport.
“We are proud that our strategy is supporting the growth of football among men, women, boys and girls from all communities.”
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How do these (FA and similar) minds work, that think meritocracy and race quotas can be simultaneously achieved?
Exactly. It’s a nonsense. DEI eclipses and cancels out meritocracy and I don’t see how they can both possibly co-exist. Here Mannie Neville: Resourcing and Talent Manager at the FA talked a few years ago about recruitment being merit-based then goes off on one about how positive this ‘diversity code’ is;
”The Football Leadership Diversity Code came into play in October last year, and the concept came from conversations between our Chief Executive, Mark Bullingham and the Chair of our Inclusion and Advisory Board, Paul Elliott, who not only has a lengthy and illustrious playing career but has also been involved in football administration and the business side of the industry for a number of years too.
Yes, it contains recruitment pledges and targets to enable and drive change, but it’s also the football industry taking a collective responsibility to increase diversity and the equality of opportunity at various levels of the game. Football will be a lot better for it and it will positively affect the industry, and hopefully society too.”
https://jobsinfootball.com/blog/mannie-neville-the-fa/
Come on, be generous.
Another job for Sir Leonard Henry?
No more than three black players in any team. Is that what they’re saying.
No. No more than 1 in 3 teams to be black.
And they say that The Great Replacement is a conspiracy theory …
“Historically under represented groups”?
About every other PL player is black!
I’m just perplexed as to why Braverman bothered writing directly to the CEO: Mark Bullingham, and not the head of HR, given that it’s common knowledge this type of woke nonsense is always the responsibility of Human Resources and absolutely NEVER the white man who’s actually in charge of any organization. Strange..Maybe Suella isn’t as clued up as we thought..🤔
https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/who-we-are/the-fa-management
People who are bad at football are terribly underrepresented in football coaching too.
Some might say they’re overrepresented…
Irrespective of the race thing, this clip made me laugh. He really does look the spit of Gareth Southgate.😆 And the fact he happened to be close to England fans who clocked the resemblance is just class;
https://x.com/FootyFansChants/status/2035311205623996756
If the proles really cared they’d vote with their feet. But they won’t. They’ll carry on buying shovels and digging their own grave. Maybe the elites have a point – we’re a bloody dumb lot.
May the best, sorry I mean most diverse team win.
“An FA spokesperson said in response: “Football has the unique ability to break down barriers and bring communities together. Through our EDI strategy, we aim to ensure the game reflects the full diversity of our nation.”
Quote: “The full diversity of OUR nation.” Is this why they have appointed a German as head coach? just to be clear, I have no problem with a German coach, but he doesn’t represent the full diversity of OUR nation.
Nobody voted for Diversity of any kind.
And yet when they appointed a coach it was a white German? Perhaps the FA could explain the selection process that was followed.
Find me a better definition of racism than this. Surely it’s straight forward discrimination against white people which when I last looked was illegal. And whatever happened to appointment by merit?
It’s only fair. Another industry that’s hideously white is the airline industry. So we also need to apply this to pilot selection and start choosing exclusively from the 15% of non-white Britons in this country. Let’s make flying more inclusive!
Apparently JImmy Floyd Hasselbank wanted assurances that he was not given a job to tick diversity boxes because he is black and wanted the job because he was capable.
So by making targets what you do is force authorities to possibly take less capable people because you need to meet a target. ——Government need to butt out of interference in every aspect of our lives, because their busybody approach simply ruins everything they touch.
But it would seem huge over representation of black and minorities in TV Adverts and period dramas from times when there were no such people around (or very few) is perfectly fine and the diversity people have no problem with that.
The FA’s EDI strategy will backfire when a team embarks on a losing streak, for whatever reason, and the fans decide it’s because the coach was chosen for being non-white and not for his/her/their(!) abilities.
It would appear that the FA is an organization where this woke crapola is managed well separate to the HR dept. They have an entire sub-committee dedicated to this DEI rubbish as well as an actual Director of EDI. What a lot of woketards this organization comprises;
”In 2024, we launched our new four-year Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) strategy for English football, ‘A Game Free From Discrimination’. A year on, we have spoken with our Director of EDI, Yasir Mirza, to reflect on the successes and progress made so far, as well as the opportunities and goals for the future.”
https://www.thefa.com/news/2025/dec/02/review-of-2024-2028-edi-strategy
”The FA has today appointed Deji Davies as its Chair of our Inclusion Advisory Board [IAB]. He will join the IAB in November and succeeds former professional footballer and Kick It Out co-founder, Paul Elliott CBE, who held the role for eight years.”
https://www.thefa.com/news/2022/oct/13/deji-davies-joins-as-inclusion-advisory-board-chair-20221310
Rupert Lowe’s RESTORE BRITAIN party “proposes a “Great Clarification Act” to reassert parliamentary sovereignty over the courts, the repeal of the Equality Act and Human Rights Act, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the abolition of Britain’s asylum system in its current form.”
Bye, bye, DEI. 🙂
In the same theme, this should also apply to players.
A certain percentage of players should be non-white.
And also apply to match scores, outcomes – match outcomes should depend upon the percentage of non-whites on the team.
I understand that they also want all coaches throughout the women’s game to be women, but of course we know there is a problem with that. What to do with chicks with dicks.
The problem with sport is that, annoyingly, the best people usually are the best at it. So by not employing the best then you are much less likely to succeed. And as this piece is about the coaches in the England National Team set up, it is interesting to look at the World Cup play offs that are happening where Italy has to beat N Ireland to progress, and then might have to beat Wales. This is a country with World Cup and European Championship wins playing the British minnow nations just to qualify. A simple reason is that Serie A prioritises foreign players over Italian young players to the extent that Como has started NO Italians this season, and you thought the Premier League was bad.
Most football teams are almost entirely black/foreign now anyway.
So why not also eradicate whites from the coaching staff?