The Football Association are launching a crackdown on the worrying trend of England players being targeted with discriminatory abuse, Mail Sport can reveal.
The governing body are set to reveal their new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy for the next four years - and it can be disclosed that one of their key targets is to eradicate the sickening abuse England footballers have received in recent years.
The FA will also reveal their intention to:
- ensure 25 percent of England men's coaching staff are black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic background (BAME). The figure is 50 percent for England women’s coaching staff
- have women make up half of their total workforce, with 20 percent of BAME origin
- make reporting of diversity numbers across professional football mandatory
- to grow a more diverse pool of referees
- to increase the number of players and coaches from under represented groups
England footballers have suffered from vile remarks in recent years - a development the FA want to proactively tackle.
In a human rights report conducted by UEFA following Euro 2024 it was revealed that Bukayo Saka and Jude Bellingham were the two most seriously abused players at the tournament.
Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were all targeted with online racial abuse after they missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy.
The FA’s pledge to overcome the prevailing issue is outlined in a new document, seen by Mail Sport, from the governing body aimed at driving through meaningful change.
In the report, the FA says they have calculated a 47 percent rise in racist abuse across all levels and a 44 percent rise in instances of sexism and misogyny.
Elsewhere in the document, the FA set out their ambition to increase BAME coaching representation across all England men's team to 25 percent. According to the report the figure currently stands at 19 percent.
That commitment comes at a time when it is yet to be concluded whether incoming England senior head coach Thomas Tuchel will have an ethnically diverse coach on his backroom team.
Chris Powell, Paul Nevin and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink all worked with the senior England team during Gareth Southgate’s eight year reign while Ashley Cole and Joleon Lescott assisted Lee Carsley’s recent interim period in charge.
Other highlights from the dossier include a clear commitment to promoting the Rainbow Laces campaign, aimed at ensuring members of the LBGTQ+ community are welcomed across English football.
Indeed, the FA have set a target of 14 percent of all their employees to be LGBTQ+ by 2028.
