Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Challenging the exclusion of British Asians in football
Dr Dan Kilvington, Course Director of media, communication, cultures, will address the reasons why, despite the growing popularity of football amongst the Asian community, so few British Asians are involved in the professional game.
“The British Asian community is hugely underrepresented in the professional game,” said Dr Kilvington.
“There are currently only 13 out of 3,700 professional players, and one out of 482 senior level coaches are of Asian heritage. My talk is all about challenging this issue and asking important questions as to why there are so few British Asians involved in the game.
“Is it down to cultural barriers? Is it down to physical attributes? These are common rationales but there are also more sinister barriers such as covert and overt forms of racism.”
Dr Kilvington has been researching the exclusion of British Asians in football for over 10 years and has in that time interviewed hundreds of key figures within the game.
He has worked with the FA to set up an inclusion initiative in 2016 called ‘Creating and Developing Coaches’, which encourages more Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic coaches to get involved in the game.
As well as discussing this initiative, he will be talking about a number of other recommendations that he has put forward to challenge the exclusion of British Asians and increase their participation within the game.
The talk will take place in the Albert Room at Leeds Town Hall on Wednesday 3 October 12.30-13.30. Register here to book your place.
Click here to find out about other events in the 2018/19 Leeds Cultural Conversations series.