League backs new campaign to kick out racism

The Football Association and Kick It Out have teamed up to make it easier for the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League’s fans and players to stamp out discrimination in football.

The governing body and football’s anti-racism charity released four short films on Monday detailing what fans and players should do when confronted by racism in football and how to quickly report incidents.

The films, available to view on FA.com, are being distributed widely across professional and grassroots football for use on club and league websites. Narrated by former England stars Graeme Le Saux and Dion Dublin, the films bring to life the animations of Paul ‘You Are the Ref’ Trevillion and have been produced as part of the new ‘Report It’ campaign.

Kick It Out has also released a new phone app to make reporting discrimination easier as part of their latest equality and inclusion campaign, pictured.

The charity’s Chairman, Lord Herman Ouseley, said: "Kick It Out welcomes any material that will increase knowledge amongst players and supporters of how to report discriminatory incidents which occur across the professional game and grassroots level.

"These films need to gain maximum exposure and be disseminated as widely as possible so that awareness of the reporting procedures reaches all the game’s stakeholders throughout the country.

"The free downloadable Kick It Out app features in the films and offers a quick, easy and discreet way of reporting incidents anonymously. Kick It Out encourages The FA to continue producing information on the reporting procedures to ensure equality can be achieved by all."

Darren Bailey, The FA’s Director of Football Governance and Regulation, said: "The FA has worked collaboratively to instil confidence in its reporting processes. We encourage anyone involved in the game who has witnessed or experienced any form of discriminatory abuse to report it.

"The films make it clear the various ways in which this can be done and are therefore a helpful tool in the overall fight against discrimination."

Le Saux believes addressing discrimination in football is critical and was delighted to be involved in the latest initiative to stamp it out.

He said: "I was delighted to be involved in presenting these films on behalf of The FA. When discrimination takes place at any level of the game, we need to ensure that we can take positive action, and the best means of ensuring that is to encourage players and supporters to report it."

He added: "These films will help explain to players and supporters both the importance of reporting discrimination and highlight the many ways in which they can do so."

The films, which are all subtitled, can be viewed by visiting www.thefa.com where information booklets explaining each film can also be downloaded for free.