The Football Association has unveiled its first-ever South Asians in Football plan, aimed specifically at improving representation across the game.

‘Build, Connect, Support’ is the first plan from the national governing body for English football, focused specifically on making the Beautiful Game more accessible to the single-largest minority ethnic group in England.

Football has come under pressure in recent years to take meaningful action to address the severe under-representation of South Asians in the English game – with latest figures indicating that less than one per cent of professionally contracted players in this country hail from the community.

Sky Sports has stepped up and demonstrated leadership in this space by creating the first index page dedicated to British South Asians in Football in the history of mainstream media. The groundbreaking work represents the longest-running major initiative in the space, with Sky’s contribution to South Asians in Football recognised with the inaugural Diversity in Media Award at the Asian Media Awards.

The Professional Footballers Association have since launched the AIMS project, with the Premier League later releasing a South Asian Action Plan, back in 2022.

The FA’s plan comes following collaboration over the last 12 months with a number of key stakeholders across the game, in addition to organisations from across English football including the Premier League, EFL, Kick It Out, Football Supporters’ Association, PFA and PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Ltd).

“Through our new ‘Build, Connect, Support’ plan, we aim to ensure that South Asian communities across the country have an increased awareness of – and access to – opportunities within our game,” FA’s head of diversity chief Dal Darroch.

“South Asians make up the largest minority group in England, and we want to build on great progress in recent years to grow representation across key areas of our game, including playing, coaching and refereeing.

“We’re committed to continuing our close work with South Asian communities to ensure that our game is better reflective of our modern society, and this plan will bring a clear focus to our work in this area for the next three years.”

The FA has set a range of different targets in the plan for various aspects of the game, including ambitious recruitment targets for refereeing, as well as dedicating slots on FA talent identification courses.

The national governing body is also implementing a grassroots football parents support network and is creating a scheme of work linking grassroots and community clubs with clubs higher up the football pyramid.

Separately, the FA will implement a bespoke scheme aimed at bringing professional clubs closer to South Asian communities locally and nationally.

The FA South Asian Shield – to be hosted at St George’s Park – will see South Asian heritage clubs playing in non-league football compete in an annual tournament in coming seasons. The FA is also working on developing a dedicated South Asians in Football online platform.

Earlier this week, Hamza Choudhury – who is one of the highest-profile British South Asians in the English game – dropped down from the Premier League to join promotion-chasing Championship side Sheffield United on an initial loan deal.

The Football Association ‘Build, Connect, Support: South Asians in Football Plan’ can be viewed in full through this FA link here

British South Asians in Football

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