Premier League publishes No Room For Racism action plan update

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Progress has been made across a range of important areas - but there is still work to be done.

2026-04-23T09:00+01:00

📷James Boardman

The Premier League has published a five-year update on its No Room For Racism Action Plan, outlining continued efforts to tackle discrimination and support players who experience racial abuse, as well as improving diversity across the game.

The Action Plan was launched in 2021, setting out a series of commitments and targets designed to combat discrimination, enhance pathways into football for under-represented groups, support communities through education, and embed equality across club operations. The update shows continued progress being made in each of these areas.

As a club, we are proud of the role we play in helping to combat discrimination in football.

In the last year the club’s social media monitoring tool have had 465 posts deleted/removed/moderated/flagged under the racism classification.
Our annual fan engagement survey found that 76% of our supporters know how to report instances of negative fan behaviour and 10% have reported before.
And while 8% of supporters have seen or heard racist comments or chanting in the last year this has seen a decrease.

We have, and will continue to work in collaboration with Kick It Out, to provide restorative sessions to those who have been referred into us through reports.

As well as continuing to use the clubs sanctions policy to investigate reports of behaviour.

The BHAFC Foundation’s Community Wellbeing and Education & Employability coaches deliver workshops in schools and at sessions as part of the PL Primary Stars, PL Inspires and PL Kicks programmes.

But there is always more that can be done.

Eve Roberts, Albion’s equality, diversity and inclusion manager, said: "The progress highlighted in this five-year update reflects the hard work being done at both a Premier League level and within our club to ensure football is a welcoming environment for everyone.

"At Brighton & Hove Albion, we are proud to see our fan engagement efforts, investigation processes, community coaching sessions and educational offerings making a real difference in how we identify and challenge discrimination.

"However, we remain under no illusions; as long as players and fans continue to face abuse, online or in the stands, our work is far from over. We are fully committed to using these insights to further refine our approach”

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters added: “I am proud of the real progress made across a range of important areas over the last five years.

“This includes investigating harmful online abuse, delivering impactful inclusive coaching programmes and providing valuable resources for schools that reach hundreds of thousands of children. We are wholly committed to increasing opportunities for people from under-represented groups and tackling racism wherever it happens in our game.

“Racism is completely unacceptable and when players continue to receive abuse on social media, it only highlights the importance of this work. We and our clubs will do all we can to bring offenders to justice and provide strong support for those subjected to racist abuse.”

📷Paul Hazlewood

There has been progress across all six pillars of the plan:

• Action against racism – The Premier League has investigated more than 4,000 cases of online discriminatory abuse targeted at players and others within the game since 2021, with legal action brought against abusers across three continents.

• Developing coaching pathways – The Premier League’s two main inclusive coaching programmes, the Professional Player to Coach Scheme and the Coach Inclusion and Diversity Scheme, support under-represented groups to develop careers in the professional game. The programmes have helped 100 participants with 85 per cent now in full-time employment in football.

• Enhancing executive pathways – 19.6 per cent of the League’s workforce is from ethnically diverse backgrounds as well as two Board members (40 per cent of the Board).

• Improving player and match official pathways – Programmes funded by the League are designed to address the under-representation of British South Asians in the men’s game and ethnically diverse groups in the women’s. More than 3,000 children have engaged in the South Asian Action Plan, and representation by players from ethnically under-represented backgrounds has increased by 87 per cent (from 204 to 383) at Premier League-funded FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centres.

• Community support – The League works to raise awareness about the strength of diversity and the harm caused by discrimination within communities nationwide. No Room For Racism resources are benefitting more than 510,000 children and 16,000 teachers in England and Wales.

• Embedding equality – The Premier League Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Standard is helping 27 clubs embed EDI across their operations, with 18 at advanced level.

Another central focus of the Premier League’s work is diversifying the pathways to positions within football for coaches, players, match officials and staff.

Former Premier League player and manager Darren Moore sits on the League’s Black Participants Advisory Group. He said: “There is always more to do, but I see first-hand the work taking place to better diversify football, from initiatives within communities up to training for top-level coaches and staff.”

Anyone who witnesses racist abuse is urged to report it. At the American Express Stadium this can be done by finding the nearest steward or by using the club’s confidential text service on 07880 196 442.