London, (Business News Report)|| Incontrovertible evidence shows that it can be stated that those with what can be considered ethnic minority and immigrant sounding names in Europe do face a level of exclusion from amateur sports clubs, ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies said.
discuss the extent of discrimination in this regard, ImpACT held a webinar that included expert in sports economics, sports management and discrimination studies Dr. Carlos Gómez González, co-author of research titled Mapping discrimination in Europe through a field experiment in amateur sport.
Sport should be a medium to bring people together, yet it can also be a window on how much progress society still needs to make, ImpACT said.
The London-based think tank added that failure to tackle this problem will bring into question the proper functioning and cohesiveness of increasingly diverse European societies.
Robert Oulds, Moderator of the webinar, and Executive Director of ImpACT International, states, “If people can be prevented from taking part in amateur football and denied the opportunity to play a game, how bad can the situation be in other fields?”
“The extend of this problem must be known and tackled. The goal is to have an inclusive society where all can have the opportunity to play a part. Football can be the entry point from where positive changes will flow.”
ImpACT recommended that action should be taken to eliminate name discrimination, and professional sports clubs should fund awareness campaigns as to the problem and provide literature to coaches and club managers as to the problem of name discrimination and the benefits of eliminating this regrettable prejudice.
The business of football, and particularly major professional football clubs, should fund websites that record and promote amateur clubs, and their games, and the scorers, ImpACT said.
ImpACT also recommended that government guidance, football governing bodies, and the sports industry should implore ethnic minorities and immigrants to persist and not take no for an answer, nor be ignored, when seeking to partake in football and other sporting activities.
Businesses and governments, need to implement policies that decrease the instances of name discrimination across all sectors from education to industry, ImpACT said.
