Boards for Diversity? A Critical Economic Sociology of British South Asian Senior Leaders’ Experiences of the Executive Level of Football

Abstract

Greg Clarke, former Chairman of the English Football Association, made several racist remarks during a 2020 appearance before a UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, claiming British South Asian people prefer to pursue careers in computing rather than football. Clarke’s ill-founded beliefs were poignantly well-timed given they came just as we were beginning our fieldwork, which involved interviewing 21 British South Asian senior leaders and executives across the football industry. Clarke’s comments crystallised what emerged from our interviews about battles to overcome institutional racisms and biases of co-workers. Drawing on over 36 hours of testimony – working at the nexus of economic sociology, critical race theory and the field of sport business management – we identify factors that regulate the openness/closedness of senior leadership and executive levels of employment in football, namely the role of exclusivity, closed networks, White allies, racial framing and exploitative temporality of non-executive boards.