Surrey County FA receive special award for Equality.
The Surrey County FA have recently been awarded the prestigious National Standard for Equality. The award was officially presented to the Association by Lord Triesman, Chairman of The Football Association during a specially arranged presentation ceremony at Wembley Stadium.
The first-ever equality standard for sport was launched in November 2004 and is a framework for assisting sports organisations to widen access and reduce inequalities in sport and physical activity from under representative individuals, groups and communities especially women and girls, ethnic minority groups and disabled people. It is based around two broad themes: developing your organisation and developing your services and four levels of achievement: Foundation, Preliminary, Intermediate and Advanced.
After 12 months of hard work, the Surrey County FA has been awarded the Foundation Level of the Standard and will now commence work towards the Preliminary Level.
Oliver Selfe, Senior Football Development Officer at the Surrey County FA, has led the portfolio for the standard and comments: “The National Standard for Equality has been a major initiative for the Surrey County FA. There has been some considerable work gone into achieving this award and I am very pleased to achieve this first level.
"As a County Football Association we have demonstrated a clear commitment to addressing inequalities and increasing participation from under represented groups."
Ray Ward, Surrey County FA Secretary, added: “This award acknowledges the work that we have made and continue to make to ensure that football is available to every sector of the community from all backgrounds. A lot of hard work has been carried out so that Surrey became one of the first Counties in the country to be recognised for this prestigious award.”
To keep up to date on football equality related issues within Surrey please keep an eye on the Women and Girls, Disability and New and Emerging Communities sections of the Surrey County FA website or follow the Surrey County FA on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/surreyfa.
