TIMELINE
July 2020 – Initial development of FA EQUALITY Now. Working group developed.
July 2020 – October 2020 – Over 100 zoom calls with former players, media professionals, members of parliament and sport Industry professional. Each time the conclusion was the FA is not fit for purpose.
Planned launch in November 2020 – FAEQUALITY Now had planned to go public in November 2020. Just a week before FA Equality Now launch, Greg Clarke, the then chairman of The FA took the organisation further into the gutter. He vacated his role immediately after his description of “coloured footballers”, amongst other remarks, caused shock and outrage in the world of football and beyond. FA EQUALITY Now decided to hold back and launch at the end of the 20/21 season.
November 2020 – current Institutional Failure with Dementia. FA try to sweep it under the carpet. Campaigners insist the FA is held to account but are not. The FA has stated for the first time that links between neurocognitive disease and football pose a risk for the organisation in terms of potential financial compensation and participation.
Its annual report, which has been posted at Companies House, includes dementia’s link to football, identified in the study into football’s influence on lifelong health and dementia risk at the end of 2019, as one of the FA’s “principal risks and uncertainties”
March 2021 – current Institutional Failure with Child Protection, Child Abuse and Safeguarding. Current FA CEO: “However, today is a dark day for the beautiful game. One in which we must acknowledge the mistakes of the past and ensure that we do everything possible to prevent them being repeated.
The survivors feel that the FA has let them down, the report is not Independent and again blamed on a previous regime and swept under the carpet.
April 18, 2021 – The backlash to the announcement on Sunday that 12 of football biggest teams (Including six from the Premier League) would be forming their own breakaway European Super League has been nothing short of seismic. Pundits, fans, former players and even governments have been near united in their opposition to a proposal that has the potential to revolutionize the world’s most-played and watched sport. From an English perspective FA EQUALITY Now believes the root cause from an English perspective is with a weak and conflicted governing body, The Football Association.
April 2021 – Independent review into the governance of Football, announced by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden on 19 April 2021, will explore ways of improving the governance, ownership and financial sustainability of clubs in English football, building on the strengths of the football pyramid. FA Equality Now decide to be part of the process and submit evidence and the FA Equality Now blueprint solution.
June 28, 2021 – FA EQUALITY NOW have a presentation and discussion with the Fan Led review of Football Governance led by Tracey Crouch. Interim report scheduled to be published end of July. FA EQUALITY NOW wait for the interim report.