Pause for a moment and picture yourself on your pitch of choice. Or perhaps you’re in the crowd beside it. How are you feeling? Why are you there? What do you love most about your game?
It’s important to remember this, to counter those times of aggression and repression in sport we’ve all either experienced or witnessed, and those times when the stands are spewing racial torrents or management hasn’t done enough to create a more inclusive, level playing field of equality for players.
We don’t play and watch sport for the racial abuse that gets hurled on and off the pitch. And we don’t want to see a homogenised team where everyone looks the same, sounds the same and prays to the same god. We come for the thrill of the sport, the teamwork and the connection it gives us to others. We want to see or play a great game of skill and determination, and it takes a variety of people to make that happen.
As even your eight-year-old nephew would probably recall, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’.” So why on earth would we want such a positive experience to be littered with fear, hate and uniformity?
Diversity isn’t just a buzzword
It’s saddening to believe, but it’s easy for equality and diversity to become throwaway terms in these times. Progress is being made, but we’re not out of the woods yet, even remotely. Diversity isn’t just a buzzword. Equality is not a trend.
These things are very real, much needed, and the time has come to put our money where our mouths are. Recent events have thrown diversity into the spotlight again, both locally and internationally, as well as outside of the sporting arena with the murder of George Floyd.
Following the missed penalties of that final Euros game against Italy, Rashford, Sancho and Saka suffered a lengthy online racist bullying spree. And then some. Even at the time, whilst sitting in the pub garden watching those final moments, comments could be heard around the tables from those who knew what was to come.
The attack sparked a rise in how many people believed that professional football had a serious problem with racism, with one in three English people who previously didn’t think racism was a serious problem changing their view following that tournament final. The same survey also revealed that 60% of fans supported taking a knee before each match.
In Pursuit of Progress, the Football Association’s three-year equality, diversity and inclusion plan, focused on increasing the diversity of people playing, officiating, coaching, leading and governing English football, as well as promoting equality. eCoach client, The Football Association of Wales, was also conducting a mass audit of players, coaches, referees and supporters to identify and tackle areas of under-representation and inequality. Their aim was to ensure that as many people as possible across Wales could take part in the sport.
The gender gap
According to longstanding charity Women in Sport, 1.5 million fewer women than men participated in sport at least once a month when this article was first published. Within the industry, women made up just 18% of qualified coaches and 9% of senior coaches. The pressures women reported as contributing to lower participation were a mix of practical and emotional factors. These included a lack of time due to greater childcare responsibilities, fear of ridicule or abuse from male counterparts or people in their community, tighter control over finances through the gender pay gap, “female invisibility” in media coverage and more.
The great news is that, at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, 49% of the 11,000 athletes were women. According to the IOC, this made it the first “gender-balanced” Games since its inception. But there was still a long way to go, with uproar over embedded discriminatory policies and sexist media coverage still rife.
Skill doesn’t observe diversity boundaries
But what does diversity actually mean? And how does equality play out in our favourite sports? It’s about protecting and celebrating the unique talents of a wide range of people from all backgrounds, orientations and body types. It’s about tearing down barriers to participation and saying “yes” to a beautiful mix of races, genders, sexual orientations, physical and mental abilities, religious beliefs, socioeconomic statuses and so much more. It’s about addressing positive recruitment and equal opportunities for existing players and taking a firm stand against abuse.
Whether it’s a person who uses a wheelchair, or someone who is Black, Asian, transgender, queer, straight, male, female or uses any other label to define themselves, everybody deserves a fair chance. Skill, knowledge and commitment to sport don’t discriminate according to how someone looks or what their personal life looks like. If they’re committed to the game, they deserve the same chances as everyone else.
Equality in sport
So, something needs to be done. No more lip service. And it can start with you.
At eCoach, we firmly stand up to inequality and discrimination of all kinds and have done since we began our own eLearning journey. From the outset, we worked proudly with Show Racism the Red Card to create a Promoting Equality and Tackling Racism in Schools eLearning course in 2019.
The original article introduced a new Equality and Diversity in Sport course, created with specialist partners, which covered the basics people needed to understand inclusivity in a sporting environment.
What learners would understand
By the end of the course, learners would:
- Understand what equality is
- Identify and understand the benefits of embracing equality
- Understand their legal requirements under the Equality Act and apply this to their environment
- Apply this knowledge by starting to create an organisational equality policy
- Comprehend what acceptable terminology is and demonstrate good practice to colleagues
- Differentiate between protected characteristics and apply this to their own circumstances
- Distinguish between different forms of discrimination and apply this to their own situation
After all, the course could be taken wherever you were and in your own time. Learners could gain essential, potentially life-changing knowledge through a flexible online format. So, what was holding them back?
Levelling the playing field in sport is achievable, and it can only start when we choose to educate ourselves on what’s right, what’s wrong and how to make things better.
At the time this article was originally published, the Equality and Diversity in Sport eLearning course was priced at £25 and granted three CIMSPA points.
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