Despite decades of policy efforts designed to address racial inequalities in British sport, their impact on disrupting longstanding injustices appears negligible. This critical commentary examines some reasons why such 'race' equality initiatives have not prompted substantive change. Rather than a policy 'failure', we argue that they may be better understood as 'succeeding' in meeting their core purpose - which is to reproduce the neoliberal conditions from which they have emerged. This alternative reading draws on Fraser's integrated theory of social justice (2000) and Meer's (2022) conception of the cruel optimism of racial justice to situate 'race' equality initiatives within their broader macro-level political, social and economic structures. In doing this, we highlight how such initiatives tend to enact core organising features of neoliberalism that include market-driven solutions to inequality, individualising sources of inequality and prioritising cultural recognition over economic redistribution. We argue that such initiatives can be seen to legitimise and reinforce - rather than challenge and disrupt - structural racial injustices that are necessary components of neoliberal societies. This analysis moves beyond a tendency within sport policy research to prioritise meso-level evaluations of organisational implementation, which often takes the underlying intention and design of policy at 'face value'. We call for a more critical macro-level examination of the wider political function and ideological underpinnings of sport policy. This alternative analysis can aid a deeper understanding of the contribution that current policy approaches may have in perpetuating, rather than redressing, systemic racial inequalities in British sport.

This article explores the various ways that coaches receive and enact policy-informed organisational expectations of practice. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 14 male English football academy coaches to explore their experiences of aligning practice to broader policy-led goals. Goffman's dramaturgy theory (1959) is used to frame these experiences, with policy compliance often prompting impression management "performances" of practice. Findings suggest that the process of adopting the "role" of a policy compliant coach can cause varying degrees of misalignment between a coach's expected practice and how they prefer to coach. This in turn shapes the extent to which coaches feel compelled to "fabricate" their practice. The paper advocates for greater recognition of how policy can shape coaching practice in varied ways. Policy makers should consider the consequences that may arise from a misalignment between a coach's preferred practice and that which is expected of them when performing policy compliance.

In February 2023, a football governance White Paper, titled 'A Sustainable Future – Reforming Club Governance' was published by the UK Gov­er­nment. The White Paper acknowledged that it would act on a recommendation from a 2021 Fan Led Review to create an independent regulator to control the professional football pyramid in the UK. It has been broadly acknowledged that fans were central to the Review, and that their views should be listened to by football club owners and directors. This commentary focuses specifically on the issue of fan engagement outlined in the 2023 White Paper, analysing Section 8 titled 'Fan Engagement and Club Heritage', to ascertain the extent to which the planned reforms and the formation of an Independent Regulator for English Football (IREF) will change the nature of the relationship between fans and the governance of their clubs.

Sports such as football are well-recognised sites for anti-racist politics. Yet, there is a lack of scrutiny and research around the racialised power dynamics between coach/teacher and athlete/student. This article presents an empirically and theoretically informed anti-racist coaching (ARC) model of practice. It was constructed using data collected from 35 semi-structured interviews with football coaches and exploratory peer-to-peer interviews with boys from professional English football academies. The ARC model is also framed by asset-based theories of anti-racist pedagogy. The model consists of six core principles: (1) Be culturally self-aware and self-reflective; (2) Be an ARC "influencer"/ally; (3) Develop anti-racist consciousness among players; (4) Build culturally competent relationships; (5) Adapt practice to meet cultural needs; (6) Create and sustain an ARC environment. After discussing the data that informed these principles, the article concludes by outlining how to embed the ARC model within football and other sport settings.

In spite of current literature illuminating the challenges professional athletes encounter when transitioning into new careers, very little research has focused on the experiences of professional cricketers. To rectify this situation, this study explores how a group of professional cricketers in England experienced retirement from their sport. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with former county (7) and international (3) male players who had retired within the last 15 years. Interview transcripts were then subjected to a narrative analysis that led to the identification of the following themes: restricting, confronting, enforcement, coherence and re-imagining . Each of these themes is discussed in detail, and the manner in which they function as narrative resources that shape the retirement experiences of the cricketers is considered. Attention is also given to how narrative repertoires amongst professional cricketers might be expanded so that multiple future selves become available to them in the process of retiring from their sport, rather than being restricted by narrowly defined career storylines.

This case study article reports on the reflections of the authors who were part of a staff-student collaborative scholarship project investigating the learning experiences of Black distance-learning students. Although there is a growing body of research on the nature, experiences, power dynamics and benefits of staff-student collaborations in higher education contexts, there is much less discussion about how wider racialised hierarchies can influence such collaborations. The project discussed in this article consisted of an ethnically diverse team – including the authors of this piece who are a white male academic staff member and a female PhD student from a Black ethnic background. This case study offers a critically reflective account of the racialised hierarchy inherently present within our relationship. We briefly consider the ways in which the collaborative project was framed by potentially exploitative racialised hierarchies including the privileging of white staff members, before considering how we tried to mitigate these hierarchies by finding ways to involve and empower the ethnic minority student members of the team. These reflections might help those who are embarking upon ethnically diverse staff-student collaborations in higher education to ensure that ethnic minority students feel empowered and to help facilitate their role in promoting institutional change and disrupting exclusionary practice.

EDITORIAL article Front. Sports Act. Living, 19 October 2023Sec. The History, Culture and Sociology of Sports Volume 5 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1308924

This chapter explores some of the key considerations when coaching participants from diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Sport is ideologically loaded with the notion of meritocracy. The emphasis on hard work, talent, and a 'never give up attitude' provides a convenient framework to help explain successes and failures – both on and off the playing field. One way to consider the ongoing influence of ideas of 'race' in sport coaching contexts is through the concept of whiteness, which has become an increasingly prominent area of analysis in sport research. The dominant position of whiteness can be seen in many sports across the world. In English football, for example, spaces of governance, management, and off-field roles are almost entirely populated by white people. Meso-level factors of sport – related to organisational structures, practices and networks – are also useful to comprehend the importance and power of whiteness.

This book brings together leading researchers from around the world to examine key questions around 'race', ethnicity and racism in sports coaching.

While a critical realist (CR) philosophy of science has gained increasing popularity in the social sciences, its application to the study of sport has so far been limited. Building on the small body of work on CR and sport, this paper considers the ways that a CR informed approach can aid a critical investigation of sport policy. It shows how CR principles were used by the author to design and conduct a large-scale investigation into the implementation of the English Football Association's equality policy. In particular, the use of Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach shaped both the ontological assumptions of the research and its methodological design. The CR approach helped in identifying some of the underlying causes of resistance to policy implementation which emerged from the data collected. This then began to show how the policy in question appeared to have the opposite effect in enforcing change in the grassroots game; existing structural conditions were strengthened through the actions of key personnel rather than elaborated or altered. The paper argues that adopting a CR approach can lead to deeper insights into the outcomes of policy implementation. CR offers critical sport scholars useful ontological and methodological guidance from which to design studies investigating issues in sport policy.

This chapter identifies the ongoing conceptual and common sense con(fusion) between Britishness and Englishness that continues to problematise debates around English national identity(ies). It points to the socially constructed nature of English national identity that is underpinned by discussions of who is included and who is excluded, arguing that this boundary drawing exercise requires continual (re)defining, (re)negotiation and contestation. The chapter shows a consistent pattern whereby Black and minoritised ethnic communities have been interpreted as a threat to a dominant White British or English culture. It suggests a useful way for understanding the experiences of many minoritised ethnic groups is through a diasporic lens, which offers multiple and varied connections between different national contexts and sport. The chapter ends with a short overview of the concept of multiculturalism as applied to national identity, focusing particularly on the extent to which ideas of diversity and tolerance appear so far to be limited in a sporting context.

In 1998, the Women's Cricket Association merged with the England and Wales Cricket Board, a move influenced by financial difficulties but also informed by a liberal, equal opportunities approach to gender equality. This article examines the early impact of this merger on the development of women's recreational cricket in England. It draws upon data collected from six semi-structured interviews with key personnel involved in women's cricket at two County Cricket Boards. Findings suggest that since the merger the development of the women's game has been limited because it has been left to "compete" for resources with the existing well-established and male-dominated clubs. Access to facilities, club infrastructure, workforce and decision-making positions remain protected by male participants and clubs. Adopting a critical feminist position, we argue that this liberal "absorption" approach to gender equality has done little to challenge the structural arrangements of recreational cricket that continue to protect and prioritise male interests.

Although sport is often regarded as a site of social inclusion that can provide rare opportunities for otherwise marginalized social groups, it harbours some of the most overt and extreme forms of discrimination and abuse. Recent high-profile discrimination cases involving professional footballers and spectators in the English Premier League and the Australian Football League have led to increased interest in the way national sport organisations deal with such incidents - particularly from politicians, lawyers and the mass media. This article explores the various ways in which cases of discrimination are handled in sport in two national settings of Australia and Britain, particularly at a grass-roots level. Drawing upon the professional, personal and research experience of both authors, the article surveys the changing nature of discriminatory abuse in grass-roots sports in both countries, before comparing and contrasting the various approaches taken to dealing with discrimination in Australian sport and English grass-roots football.

Ideologies of meritocracy and fairness are enduring features of many sporting cultures – perhaps particularly in Britain – and yet it was only in the late 1990s that social equality policies emerge...