In some professional football leagues you can see that up to 30% of the players on the pitch are from minority backgrounds but the coaches are from a pool that consists of former white players. The European anti-racism networking organization Fare is, therefore, launching the Governance Index project through which national experts will be collecting data and developing recommendations for action by football bodies.
The Governance Index has recently appointed national level experts in the 14 European countries of the project to act as data collectors. Countries under study are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden.
The national data collectors work with a team of academics led by Dr. Jacco Van Sterkenburg of ESHCC (Media and Communication), in cooperation with Mulier Instituut – Dutch Research Centre for Sport in Society.
Findings will be expected in the autumn or beginning of winter and be shared with the main stakeholders in professional football.
More information can be found on the Fare Network website.
A book about racism in sport coaching
In July, an edited collection on the topic of racism in sports coaching will be published with Routledge, by Van Sterkenburg with his English colleagues Bradbury and Lusted: 'Race', Ethnicity and Racism in Sports Coaching.
- More information
Personal page of Dr. Jacco van Sterkenburg