The Football Association has an extensive range of inclusivity partners to help provide access to football for everyone.

Central to The FA’s Strategic Plan for 2011–15 is to deliver ‘football for everyone’. We are determined to provide an inclusive football experience for anyone who wishes to play or support English football and an experience that is reflective of our diverse communities, safe for all and free from abuse and discrimination.

As the game’s National Governing Body, The FA is responsible for, and accountable to, the whole sport, from grassroots community football through to professional level and the 24 England teams that we administer and support.

To impact such a broad range of participants – there are approximately seven million people regularly involved in football including over 400,000 volunteers – requires a range of programmes, services and interventions.

Our approach to all our equality work focuses on two key aspects: inclusion and anti-discrimination.

The football authorities have taken a collaborative approach to campaigning against racism and discrimination, in particular through the establishment, in 1993, of the brand name of the campaign Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football, with Kick It Out, as a body, being established in 1997.

The FA has played a part as a Trustee and funding partner of Kick It Out, alongside the Premier League and the Professional Footballers Association. The FA’s funding for Kick It Out is the largest funding distribution to a campaigning organisation in football.

The FA also endorses the work of Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC), providing access to England team images, supporting local events and messaging about racism. SRtRC is an anti-racism charity established in 1996, which focuses on educational materials fronted by high profile people including professional footballers. Furthermore The FA endorses Football Unites and Racism Divides (FURD), a Sheffield-based project, which was created to tackle a local problem and has grown to be recognised for its work more widely.

In Europe, we support the work of Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), which operates alongside UEFA, national associations and campaigning organisations.

These campaigns have been instrumental in providing the football authorities and clubs with a focused and sustained message about anti-racism and have begun to broaden out to address other areas of discrimination.

The FA has developed an equality education programme of three workshops: Equality, Race Equality and Disability Equality. These can be adapted to fit the professional game context and the Football League is working with The FA on this. All Referees have had training on the Laws of the Game and in particular Law 12, which includes recognising ‘offensive, insulting and abusive language and behaviour’. All coach educators have received equality in tutoring training.

In 2011, following the recognition that there is a shortage of coaches from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities – with Level 3 qualifications and above – The FA is leading a football-wide initiative called COACH. Backed by all of the football authorities, initially this saw the launch of a film which was released on social media, to encourage more coaches from BAME backgrounds.

The next stage of COACH has seen the opening of the application process for a bursary programme, supported by all the football authorities, to capacity build Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic coaches aspiring to achieve higher (Level 3 and above) qualifications, so that they can more readily challenge for jobs in football. In recognition of the under-representation of ethnic minority coaches at the highest level of the game, The FA has also made spaces available specifically for ethnic minorities who attain the pre-requisites, on its Pro-License course.

Since 2008, The FA has endorsed the Black List Awards, celebrating the achievements of the Black African and Caribbean communities in football. In 2012, The FA supported the inaugural Asian Football Awards and Asian and Muslim Women’s Sport Foundations Awards.

One of the three key goals in The FA’s strategic framework is ‘Football for Everyone’. We remain committed to delivering on this goal.

We will continue to work collaboratively across the football family – we recognise we are stronger and can be more effective when we work in this way.

As the challenges in achieving equality, diversity and inclusion are dynamic and ever-evolving, The FA’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion has to adapt and change.

The FA will continue to lead and deliver a wider focus on equality and to see an overview of the wide ranging work we do then please visit our equality pages.