Honest question: I’m a longtime premier league fan from the US. In my over 10 years of watching English football, I’ve never seen a person of color as the center referee in a premier league match. Does anyone know why this is? A significant percentage (majority) of premier league players are not white, and given research around subconscious bias, you have to imagine the league and refereeing body would have an interest in having their game officials be representative of the players they officiate? With the quality of officiating being in the news so much recently, increasing diversity in the ranks of game officials could be one idea. I imagine it’s just a big old boys club though…
I just skimmed this Athletic article about it. My summary is that there’s a byzantine process for officials making their way up the hierarchy, a lack of diversity among the assessors, and no real effort/desire to actively recruit from Black and Asian communities.
Why should they actively look to recruit black and Asian referees and I’m saying this as an Asian. Are they better than the current ones? Maybe. Could be worse. Or they don’t value being a referee as a career. Why does everything has to come to race?