New Kick It Out CEO Okafor: There's a lack of accountability within football

Kick It Out’s new CEO Samuel Okafor says there is a lack of accountability in football when it comes to under-represented communities.

Three months into the job, he told Sky Sports News there are problems with representation around female coaches, Black coaches, South Asian players, refereeing and boardrooms in the sport.

Okafor, who played non-League football for clubs including Colchester, where in his early days he was chased through the streets because of his race, joins Kick It Out after years working in the finance industry.

“The culture aspect remains a real challenge for football. In addition to that, representation remains a real challenge,” he said.

“When I look at some of the basics when we talk about representation, I think my observation is that football is significantly behind in doing the basics.

“What I mean by that is workforce representation and being able to communicate that in a regular place.

“Football doesn’t have that today. I know there are plans in place to have that, but that’s a basic across industry. Workforce targets are a basic across industry.

“Football doesn’t have accountability in terms of who owns those targets.

“And my observation early doors is that you can continue to pump investment into programmes, but if those programmes aren’t delivering the outcome, then you need to ask yourself the question, ‘what needs to happen in the system?'”

As revealed in Sky Sports News’ documentary, Against the Odds: Black Managers in English Football, the FA say they will introduce the mandatory reporting of the breakdown of the staff within professional football clubs by the end of this season.

The start of this season saw just two Black managers in charge of clubs within England’s top four tiers, Nuno Espirito Santo at Nottingham Forest and Darren Moore at Port Vale.

“Unless football addresses that lack of accountability, it will still be talking about the same issues in 10 or 20 years,” said Okafor.

“Unless it starts to publish data, unless it starts to have targets, unless it starts to address the recruitment issues that it has, and have effective recruitment processes, you’ll still have representation issues for years to come.

“When I do the comparison in terms of industries, and I’m not saying the financial service industry is perfect, but when we look at the fundamental basics, football is lagging behind.”

Okafor is seemingly starting his role on the front foot, taking inspiration from the late Lord Herman Ouseley, founder of Kick It Out, who passed away on October 2.

“Lord Ouseley was a man who had great courage, a man who spoke truth to power, a man who made significant impact in the game,” said Okafor.

“I think it was really positive to see the FA pay tribute to him at the last England game,” said Okafor.

“It was positive to see a number of clubs in the WSL pay tribute to him as well, and I know there are a number of activities that are due in the weeks and months that are coming to pay tribute as well.”

Many of the tributes to Lord Ouseley mentioned his willingness to speak out on issues regarding discrimination in football and issues around underrepresented communities in the game.

“I think that’s a really important role and that’s what you’ll get from me in terms of celebrating where we are making progress, and where we’re not, let’s call it out,” said Okafor.

“But let’s also come up with solutions as well. I think that’s really important.

“There’s one thing highlighting the issue, but what do we need to put in place to address the challenges? I’ve quickly drawn the conclusion there is a lack of accountability in football.”

Okafor spoke to Sky Sports News at Kick It Out’s Raise Your Game event at the University Campus of Football Business at Wembley, a day for young people who are looking to kickstart their career in the football media industry.

It’s one of a number of campaigns and projects that the charity is behind to make a difference in football including their recent push to drive out sexism and misogyny from the sport.

“My role is to set the strategic direction for the organisation and work with the teams in making all the activities happen,” said Okafor.

“It’s challenging but it’s also exciting. Different stakeholders have different priorities but to challenge culture, it’s not going to take one organisation.

“It’s the collective force of us all working together to change the culture of football, to make it more inclusive and to change representation.”

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Kick It Out is football’s equality and inclusion organisation – working throughout the football, educational and community sectors to challenge discrimination, encourage inclusive practices and campaign for positive change.

www.kickitout.org