SFA unveil ‘vast’ anti-discrimination action plan put in place in response to Glen Kamara racism row

The SFA convened a series of virtual summits in the aftermath to discuss what more could be done to address the issue here and their Equality and Diversity Board (EDAB) have used the findings from those discussions to put together a wide-ranging anti-discrimination action plan.

Scottish players who are found guilty of racial or homophobic abuse towards an opponent face being banned for up to a year – the most severe punishment in Europe – if the strict new disciplinary measures proposed in the plan are given the go ahead.

However, there are many, many more changes which have already been, and will be in the future, implemented as a result.

David McCardle, the SFA equality and diversity manager who sits on EDAB, is hopeful the plan will go a long way towards ensuring the next generation of coach, footballer and supporter in Scotland will not experience the same sort of problems which their predecessors have in the past.

“We have already made a vast amount of changes to the game as a result the anti-racism summits that we had after the Glen Kamara incident,” he said. “But we have an anti-discrimination action plan that has just been signed off by the board. We have set out a clear plan of what we are going to do.”

The SFA co-opted Marvin Bartley of Livingston and Leanne Ross of Glasgow City onto EDAB following the Kamara incident to offer an insight into the difficulties that black and female players must overcome in the sport on a daily basis. McCardle feels their contributions to the process were important. 

“I am a white man,” he said. “So I don’t understand what someone like Marvin has gone through in his life and goes through during a game of football. So we brought him in and asked him questions. What are the challenges? What do you feel? What do you want to see change?

“We brought in Leanne to let us know what the female perception is in terms of football and the challenges she feels as a female coach and player. That allowed us to make the changes that we needed to make.”

Education, the number of black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) players and coaches in the Scottish game, racist abuse on social media websites and supporter disorder in the stands are among the areas covered by the plan.

“We are going to do education around the country,” said McCardle. “We are going to work with schoolkids and with grassroots clubs to educate children about anti-discrimination, especially about racism and homophobia. 

“We are creating an e-learning programme that is pretty much going to be made available to every coach in Scotland free of charge. We are at the final stage of that.

“We launched a mental health e-learning course which has had 12,000 coaches go through it in a year. We would expect the anti-racism one to be every bit as popular. We are trying to educate as much of the game as possible.

“We are doing a lot to make sure people know what monkey chants are. We are still in a day and age where people don’t understand what impact that has on somebody, how it makes people feel. Xenophobia, shouting at somebody go back to Nigeria or Cameroon or wherever, too. It is a form of racism as well.

“We are trying to make sure everybody is fully aware of what the expectations are, what these words and phrases mean. Then there is no coming back from it. They have been told it is racist. If they then say it they know what will happen. They can’t plead innocence.

“We are doing an awful lot to create a more understanding community and environment and a better opportunity for people to enjoy the game. Rather than having a silly minority of individuals making the headlines that we don’t want to see in Scottish football.”

He added: “The plan looks at how we are going to support the capturing of discrimination around social media. The SFA is leading the way in speaking to social media companies and government about how legislation and rules can change within that.

“Also, how can we support the clubs in dealing with any fan behaviour? How can the SFA be an influence on it? We support a vast amount of players with mental health issues each year, especially in the senior game. How can we ensure that is supported further for any player who receives any form of discrimination?”

The SFA are satisfied the number of BAME players and coaches in Scottish football is representative of wider society. However, McCardle accepts that is very much not the case at the highest level of the game. “We have identified that and recognise something has to be put in place,” he said.

All 118 of the SFA’s member clubs are currently assessed by the governing body on an annual basis and McCardle revealed that anti-discrimination measures are now a major part of the national licensing system. 

“We have put really in-depth equality standards on all our clubs now,” he said. “Every single board in the country has now stated that they are responsible for discrimination within their club. They all have a zero tolerance approach for discrimination within their club, from supporters, to players, to staff. All of them have really robust and correct equality policies.

“Over the next few years what we are asking them to do is just going to increase. From next year, every single club in Scotland is going to have to do equality monitoring of their environment, from supporters all the way down to who they employ.

“We will now know exactly what clubs are below the representation threshold that we are challenging the whole of the Scottish game to be. At that point, we can go to them and say: ‘Why don’t you have eight per cent representation of ethnic minorities within your club? Why don’t you have a single disabled person attending your matches? What is the reason behind that?”

The Covid-19 outbreak in the March last year delayed that 10 year programme being rolled out. It was put on hold so the SFA could deal with the more pressing problems caused by the pandemic. Then the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States sparked worldwide anti-racism protests. 

“We went right back to page one again,” said McCardle. “We asked: ‘Is this right for the environment that has now been created by what happened in Minnesota? Does it still meet the 10 year down the line challenge? To be fair, it did. We seem to be having the right conversations with the right people.”