Since the launch of the Kick Racism Out Of Football campaign in 1994 the members of the PFA have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to anti-racism. It is now considered the most successful campaign in football and continues to lead the way for countries around Europe to aspire to.

The PFA and our members also support the Show Racism the Red Card, Football Unites, Racism Divides, and the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network.

Players have attended events across the country to educate and inspire children and young people that there is no place for racism in our game or in our lives. It would be easy to think that racism no longer exists but there is a growing trend in far-right politics that means prejudiced ideals are integrated with everyday thinking – we must remember that we are all equal wherever we are born, whatever religion, whatever language and whatever team we play for.

UEFA state that they use England as a role model for anti-racist initiatives in football. This demonstrates that although we have along way until things are perfect, we are an example of good practice to encourage the rest of Europe to follow suit.

In 2007 the CEHR, DRC and EOC joined to form the new all-embracing body for equality and human rights in the UK. The CEHR (Commission for Equality and Human Rights) promotes fairness and good relations which is a task for everyone in society, both at work and at play. The CEHR works towards Rights, Representation, Recognition and Respect for all members of society. All of which are equally at home under the PFA umbrella and we look forward to furthering our best practise in the field of anti-racism with the other strands of equality: Gender, Age, Disability, Faith and Sexuality as well as Race.

In 2003 the CEHR conducted a survey of the English football game to determine their commitment to racial equality. It published its findings in 2004 in its report Racial Equality in Football: A survey. The report concluded that, there was a great deal of work to focus on before football could say it had kicked racism out of the game

In the two years since it was published, the CEHR guided by special Football Advisors Paul Elliot and Garth Crooks has worked with all football organisations to establish key areas for change.

The PFA has always been committed to representation across the board from the field of play, in coaching and management to administration and at Board Level.

We are proud of our representation on our Management Committee with 25% from ethnic minorities including the PFA chairman Chris Powell.

We have a designated Player Development Officer whose role is to identify talented players with management potential and encourage ethnic minority players into coaching and coach education. We are already seeing an increase in qualified black coaches and we would like to see this to continue in order to ensure a pool of qualified coaches who can qualify for the top coaching positions.

Our Award-winning Black Coaches Forum (See below) was established in 2003 and is an arena for players, coaches and management to lobby for greater opportunities in their field.

The PFA has established a diversity-training programme for players and academy scholars in association with the FAPL and Kick It Out.

 

The Black Coaches Steering Group was established in September 2003.

The group meets quarterly and includes a core of players, coaches and managers such as:
 

We have invited a number of speakers including Greg Dyke, Theo Paphitis and Dr Sue Bridgewater to discuss their equity strategies within their respective clubs, companies, organisations.

Whilst the group acknowledge that change needs to be driven from the very top down, we feel that there has been progress made in the short time it has been established and will continue to work towards a more equitable solution for black players who want to continue their career path in football.
 

Due to concerns on the lack of Asian players being engaged by professional football, the PFA invited a group of the current Asian players to attend a series of meetings in London where they could discuss their career's with PFA and Kick It Out representatives.

The following players attended the meetings: Zesh Rehman (Queens Park Rangers FC), Anwar Uddin (Dagenham and Redbridge FC), Adnam Ahmed (Tranmere Rovers FC), Netan Sansara (Walsall FC).

The first meeting was called to talk to Asian players within the system to seek their views on a range of areas including their path into the professional game, issues facing them as young Asian footballers and how aspiring youngsters could be encouraged into the game. It was also an opportunity for the players to talk to each other and share experiences of their careers and celebrate their successes.

The players were proud of their pioneer status as the first group of Asians in professional football and likened their progress to the early days of black footballers who are now prolific in the game. We will work with our members to encourage and inspire younger Asian children that there IS a place for them in professional football and we are all working to ensure that the Asian population is represented on the football pitch.

In June the South East Asian Cup will be held in the Maldives and we will feature updates of games (from Zesh Rehman and Adnan Ahmed who play for Pakistan) in this section of the website.

Also we will feature player profiles of the Asian players who attended these meetings during the pre-season period and feature up-dates of them during the course of the season.

In 1993 the PFA and the Commission for Racial Equality formed the Kick Racism Out of Football campaign. Over the past ten years Kick It Out has worked within football to try and eradicate racism from the game.

It is now supported by all of the major partners in football: The FA, The PFA, The Premier League and The Football Foundation and also by The Football League, The League Managers Association, The Football Supporters Association, The Federation of Football Supporters Clubs, Local Government Association, Football Safety Officers Association, Metropolitan Police, Football Conference and Association of Premier League and Match Officials.

Whilst we have come a long way from the days in football when banana skins and monkey chants were a regular occurrence at games, everyone knows there is still some way to go before we have kicked racism out of football for good.

Unfortunately there are still sections of society where racism still exists and as the football stadium is a reflection of society as a whole, racist incidents are still prevalent within the game.

If you hear or experience any racial abuse in or around a football ground on a match day you can report it by calling the Kick It Out hotline: 0800 169 414

Kick It Out works with football clubs and their surrounding communities to campaign against racism. Many players have championed the Kick It Out cause and every year the National Week of Action that takes place around Black History Month in October utilises football clubs, football players and young children to challenge racism.


 

Kick it Out is part of the FARE network: Football against Racism in Europe which is also supported by UEFA. European football has a greater degree of racism than England which is why English teams, including our national side, has experienced problems playing in Europe.

In actual fact, Europe look to England as a role-model as to how to deal with racism in the game. UEFA recently held an international conference on racism in the game and championed the success of England and how it has dealt with racism over the past twenty years.

Despite this fact we are seeing an increase in racism in football and we are doing all we can to ensure that the problem does not escalate back to those dark days of banana skins and monkey chants.

 

This campaign works by demonstrating the positive effect that footballers have on young children. We all know that racism is ignorance and the only way to fight it is through education.

Show Racism the Red Card work tirelessly to demonstrate to children the success of football and strength of uniting together regardless of race, creed, gender or ethnicity.

The campaign is funded by the PFA and UNISON and footballers demonstrate their commitment to the campaign by taking part in Show Racism the Red Card activity days at clubs across the country.

The PFA are part of a collective working group to tackle two of the evils of racism – Anti-semitism which still occurs on a regular basis at some Premiership clubs including Spurs, West Ham and Arsenal and Islamophobia which is a growing concern for the Muslim community.

Gordon Taylor attended the first working group that was opened by FA Chairman Lord Treisman and attended by representatives from the Football League, Premier League, Kick It Out, Paul Elliot and Garth Crooks in their capacity as Football Advisors to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.

As part of a new zero tolerance policy against anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, it is a possibility that English football clubs may be hit hard by The FA in future, should supporters engage in this sort of abuse.

As well as a growing number of Asian supporters in the game, there are Asian professional footballers, some of whom are Muslim as well as players who are not Asian but are Muslim. It is important to ensure that we work together to ensure that racist stereo-types do not perpetuate the norm.

Hitler succeeded to alienate groups of people including the Jews, gypsys and gays and it is a travesty that in this day and age we are still trying to combat his way of thinking – even amongst people who are not Nazi’s.

Please work with us to eradicate the racists in every sector of our game.

The possibility of points being docked in league campaigns was one punishment put forward at football’s faith summit held prior to this meeting at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters the Empress State Building. The FA, the PFA, The Leagues, Kick It Out, the Metropolitan police, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the National Association of Muslim Police met to discuss tackling such incidents on the terraces and near grounds.

At present, abusive fans face being banned, but this is done by individual clubs rather than The FA.

At the meeting in London, The FA said that as well as docking points from clubs, it was also thinking about forcing them to play behind closed doors in extreme cases - a penalty sometimes enforced by other governing bodies abroad.

The PFA welcome tougher sanctions when dealing with racism and will continue to do all it can, on behalf of our members to put a stop to abuse of this kind.

From time to time players are on the receiving end of racist abuse from fans, sometimes in Europe but also at games in this country either home or away.

If this happens there is a course of action that takes place to ensure that the abuse is reported and documented. By doing this we can ensure that there is a record of the abuse and can use to assess whether clubs and The FA are doing enough to tackle the problem and address the issues.

If a player receives racist abuse that is audible from the stands by the referee or match officials, the abuse should be documented in the official match report.

The player should report the abuse to the PFA either directly or through the club PFA delegate.

The PFA will write to the appropriate governing body on the player's behalf, documenting the evidence and copying the letter into the player and the player's club secretary.

 

Shakka Hislop received the 2005 PFA Merit Award
for his work against racism.