July 28 – English FA chairman Greg Dyke, speaking via video message to members of the Football Supporters Federation and Supporters Direct via video message at their annual Supporters Summit, described his own organisation as being too old, too male and too white and that it was time for change.
Dyke said that reform was needed not just within the FA but also throughout its various stakeholders.
“If you look at who’s supporting, who’s playing and then you look at the FA Council – it doesn’t represent them,” said Dyke.
“It’s still overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white, in a world that isn’t overwhelmingly male and white, and somehow that has to be changed. We have to try and change it but we’re not alone, supporters have got to try and change it as well.
“We’ve got to look at how we involve the population of 21st-century England and the mix it’s got. If we just carry on like this – old, white males – we’re going to be increasingly irrelevant.”
Despite Dyke being lauded while at the BBC for his description of the public broadcaster as being “hideously white”, his record on inclusion at the FA has to date been patchy.
His England Commission, set up to look at and change the structure of English football with the intention of promoting English players, was initially formed of eight former players, coaches, and administrators to his commission – all white and middle aged.
At the time the FA’s only female board member Heather Rabbatts, herself of mixed race, accused the FA of letting down black and ethnic minority people.
Jeff Webb, the head of FIFA’s anti-racism task force, said he was left “disheartened” after meeting “demoralised” black and ethnic minority players in England.
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