The absence of British Asians in football can’t be defined by just”one or two difficulties”, with several paths having to be researched, as stated by the Tackling Racism panel.
Despite there being 3,700 professional football players from the English game, just 11 are from a British Asian background, making up for just 0.3 per cent of the entire total.
“These items never have one or two causes, it is never just a scarcity of role models or ethnic aspects,” The Independent’s main sports writer Jonathan Liew stated.
“We’ve been speaking about this issue for the last 20 to 30 years so it must go deeper than that – it must be structural reasons, social reasons and representation in all walks of life.
“When people talk about British Asians not being represented in soccer it has all these issues throughout the board – from grassroots to colleges, scouting, clubs, academies as well as institutional.”
Presenter and sports journalist Reshmin Chowdhury considers the lack of character models that are Asian plays a enormous part in the problem with the idea’you can not be what you can not see’ essential in helping develop a clear pathway for aspiring kids.
“If you want to expect to become something, you need to feel like there is a real path to perform it,” Chowdhury said.
“Those kind of role models are very important, only to have somebody there who resembles you or has the exact identical history makes this a difference since you can connect with that person before understanding them.
“I didn’t have a single important part model to aspire to – all my role models were white guys, although the girls I did not relate to either because we did not have similar backgrounds – other than we were women who loved sport.
“There wasn’t a single important role model for me, but thankfully that is changing.”
Charlton Athletic Women’s director Riteesh Mishra, who is also a part of the Asian Inclusion Plan of this FA, does believe there are opportunities out there – but minorities, sadly, have to work harder for these.
“It’s difficult since you don’t necessarily see someone who looks like you or comes out of the identical background as you,” Mishra said.
“There are opportunities that are made but perhaps if you’re an ethic minority you have to, sadly, be prepared to go over and beyond to level the playing area on your own.
“You have to volunteer for quite a while and build experience in various approaches and then there’s more emphasis on you to consider the opportunities as they come.”
But, the director of Colchester United pf Performance Jon De Souza refuted claims there was institutionalised racism in soccer – particularly in scouting gamers.
“I’d disagree with that, the biggest driver and fear for the majority of scouts is missing out about players,” De Souza stated.
“Most scouts are petrified at missing out to the one that might go to another club and also be successful.
“I believe most clubs appear in each area possible in their catchment area to acquire the best gamers.
“Having worked at Luton, Brentford and Colchester we certainly looked for players at every possible area and we are very eager to find the best potential players
“No-one would want to run the danger of passing up a key player regardless of their ethnicity.”
See the’Tackling Racism’ show on Sky Sports News and Sky Sports Main Event on Mondays at 9pm.
Könyvek vétele, eladása.