Shaping the FA’s national strategic approach

• Dr Bradbury’s research underpins three new strategy documents – the BAME Coach Development Strategy (2017), Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan (2018), and Football Leadership Diversity Code (2020).

Ensuring equitable practices

• In 2018, the FA implemented a new policy for coach recruitment which has already doubled the representation of BAME coaches within England teams.
• The EFL implemented two new coach recruitment policies in 2016 – resulting in a two-fold increase of BAME head coaches at EFL clubs.

Enhancing BAME coach development

• The £1.4 million FA Coach Inclusion and Diversity programme (see below) which provides bursaries and resource support to BAME coaches to achieve HLCE awards has delivered significant representational outcomes for BAME coaches.
• The FA and PFA Elite Coach Placement programme – launched in 2018 – has enabled 15 BAME coaches to complete season-long placements with England national team squads.
• In 2020, the PFA, EPL and EFL launched the Professional Player to Coach scheme which provides salaried work placements for BAME former players with EFL first teams and youth academy clubs. It also supports their participation in HLCE awards.

Addressing Under Representation
Panel discussion at the Soccerex Global Convention 2017 featuring Dr Bradbury, Michael Johnson and Andrew Cole