Following recent anti-immigrations protests we wanted to remind the Sussex football community that football in this county is for everyone!

As anti-racism protesters took to the streets in places across the county yesterday evening, as an organisation, we wanted to emphasise that we stand with every member of our community against racism and discrimination in any form, both on and off the pitch.

Football plays a vital role in community across Sussex and brings people together like no other sport. Racism divides these communities, and we have a key role in actively bringing people together, challenging racism and discrimination to make football a game for all our players, parents/carers, coaches, referees, volunteers, supporters and employees.

We have worked hard to build safe and inclusive environments with a strong disability league, regular matches/festivals for LGBTQ+ and projects to work with our county’s diverse ethnic minorities, refugee, faith and traveller communities.

Our Inclusion Advisory Group (IAG) was established back in 2016, and we have worked hard to make this group representative of our communities, to help support our work on inclusion throughout our strategies and everyday practices.

We need to ensure that our players, coaches and volunteers have a trustworthy and robust process to report racial abuse and racism. We continue to work with our IAG to develop, promote and implement this disciplinary process. We will also continue to work with our referees so that they identify and report issues of racism.

This statement outlines our intention to remain committed to eliminating discrimination and racism from the game and we will continue our endeavours to work harder to remove the systemic barriers for those who watch and support the game and our players, coaches, volunteers and employees to tackle racism, to make ‘Football For ALL’.

For further information about our equality and inclusion work, or to apply to join our IAG, please contact Development:

Development
T: 01903 766855
E: Development@SussexFA.com