FOOTBALL: The Football Leadership Diversity Code will help clubs to better represent our modern and diverse society across the National
LEADERSHIP: League system, Women’s pyramid and grassroots football by seeking to tackle inequality and improve representation of
DIVERSITY CODE: Historically underrepresented groups across senior leadership positions, wider team operations and coaching roles.

We commit to being Leaders in Football Diversity, ensuring that we promote and deliver the highest standards across our club, including:

1. CLUB LEADERSHIP
   We commit that our club’s leadership should reflect the diversity of our local community. We will achieve this by:
   • Ensuring that our leadership reflects the local population in terms of gender, ethnicity, disability, and all other historically underrepresented communities
   • Ensuring equality of opportunity for all
   • Carrying out selection based on merit, whilst seeking to source volunteers from a diverse pool of talent
   • Monitoring all protected characteristics, cultural and social backgrounds within our leadership.
2. COACHING & SELECTION
   We commit to ensuring diversity within our volunteer coaching workforce. We will achieve this by:
   • Supporting individuals from all historically underrepresented groups and across age groups to become the next generation of coaches
   • Selecting coaches openly and encouraging people from a diverse range of backgrounds to coach within the club
   • Monitoring the diversity of our coaches and working towards them reflecting our player base.
3. CULTURE
   We commit to continuing to strive for the most inclusive club culture. We will achieve this by:
   • Having a ‘Club Equality Policy’ which promotes equality, diversity and inclusion, adopted by all club members / players / officials as a condition of membership annually
   • Ensuring all club officials attend The FA’s equality, diversity, and inclusion online offerings, refreshing this at appropriate intervals
   • Signposting all members to The FA’s equality, diversity, and inclusion online training each season
   • Ensuring that young people are involved meaningfully in our club (through a youth committee or other suitable mechanism) if our club provides a youth offering or youth teams
   • Monitoring our cultural progress through an annual club culture survey with a template provided by The FA
4. REPORTING DISCRIMINATION
   We commit to encouraging the reporting of discrimination. We will achieve this by:
   • Distributing information on how to report discrimination to all club members, every season. This will include information on the importance of immediately notifying a match official of any incident that occurs on a match day
   • Acknowledging that in some instances, discriminatory abuse or behaviour may be a criminal offence. In these instances, we will be proactive and report this to the Police by calling 101
   • Reporting all incidences of discrimination immediately to our local County FA, Kick It Out or The FA
5. RAISING AWARENESS
   We commit to raising awareness on the topic of equality, diversity, and inclusion. We will achieve this by:
   • Using The FA’s Diversity Code resources to promote our support and raise awareness with others
   • Making efforts to engage with local media and other local bodies to publicise our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion
   • Supporting The FA and other anti-discrimination body campaigns.
6. NOTES:
   • Club Leadership means the club’s committee or anyone who makes day to day decisions concerning the running of the club
   • Each club can receive a breakdown of local diversity data from their local County FA for comparison purposes
   • The FA will provide templates of recruitment resources for clubs to use
   • The FA will provide guidance on monitoring club diversity
   • The FA will provide a template for a Club Equality Policy
   • The FA will provide online club officials diversity training accessible and trackable via FAN number
   • The FA will provide a template for an annual internal club culture survey
   • The FA will provide reporting resources and videos to clubs via online mechanisms
   • The FA will create digital Diversity Code promotional resources for clubs
   • The FA will assist in providing mechanisms to help monitor all the above measures, which aligns to the current League and Club accreditation process
7. The above supporting mechanisms in place to support clubs with the Football Leadership Diversity Code may change over time to drive adoption of the code.
8. Other protected characteristics mentioned above means all areas covered under the Equality Act 2010. These are:
   • Gender • Sexual orientation
   • Ethnicity • Marriage or civil partnership
   • Disability • Maternity/Paternity
   • Age • Gender reassignment
   • Faith