Vincent Kompany believes change must start in the boardroom if English football is to become more diverse (Steven Paston/PA)
Burnley manager Vincent Kompany believes increasing diversity at boardroom level is the key to unlocking change at every other level of football.
Last week the Football Association released figures showing the football clubs who had voluntarily pledged to improve their ethnic and gender diversity through the Football Leadership Diversity Code had collectively failed to hit any of their annual targets.
Fifty-three clubs have signed up to the FLDC, which is in its third year and which sets voluntary targets in four areas of recruitment – senior leadership roles, team operations, coaching in the men’s game and coaching in the women’s game.
We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity.
But figures for the last 12 months show clubs failing to achieve success in any category.
Senior leadership hiring of black, Asian and mixed heritage candidates is set at 15 per cent, but clubs only achieved 9.1 per cent. In men’s clubs, the target for new coaching hires from a black, Asian or mixed heritage background was 25 per cent but clubs only managed 16 per cent.
Asked what he thought could be done to improve those figures, Kompany said change must come from the top.
“You’d like to think over time this is going to evolve,” the 37-year-old said. “I’ve always made the point clearly and I think in this day and age it’s even more important – what is the diversity in a boardroom, the levers of power?
“The coaching, you give the job to the best people but I think
Read on belfasttelegraph.co.uk