Home Nations’ Sport Councils Team Up To Tackle Racism
The five sport councils from across the UK have come together in a bid to tackle racism and racial inequality across each of the Home Nations.
According to the organisations, the CEOs of UK Sport, Sport England, sportscotland, Sport Wales and Sport Northern Ireland have worked closely to build a more reflective sporting system of the communities they represent, and to work on eradicating racial inequality.
Two pieces of work have been commissioned as part of the initiative’s first phase, which involve bringing together existing data on race and ethnicity in sport in order to ‘identify gaps and make recommendations’, as well as ‘creating an opportunity to hear lived experiences of racial inequalities and racism in sport’ by allowing people to tell their stories.
“Recent events across the world have provided new impetus to look again at the significant ethnicity gap in leadership and participation that exists in sport,” said Tim Hollingsworth, CEO, Sport England.
“That should not, however, hide the fact that some of the challenges faced and reasons for it are long standing and deep rooted. Tackling them will demand real leadership and we are determined to play our part alongside the other sports councils.
“This work, and in particular the evidence that we will collect and the lived experience we will learn from, is just the beginning. Like others, a key focus of ours will be changing our own organisation and how we work.
“This review will be key to helping us understand better how to lead, to move forward positively to change, and to make a lasting difference to people’s lives.”
According to the group, a full report and set of recommendations will be made within six months on both pieces of work.
