What do Alex Scott, Anita Asante, Rachel Yankey, Lianne Sanderson, Mary Phillip, Jess Carter, Lauren James and I have in common? You may quickly come to the answer that we are all women of color. That’s true, but more importantly, the common thread is our individual and team achievements playing for the best women’s football teams, namely Arsenal and Chelsea, with multiple national and international trophies and 428 (and counting) joint matches in England .
Simply put, we are without a doubt among the best in the class and based on the achievements of James and Carter in recent years, diverse women of color in football will continue to be among the best. There is certainly no doubt about whether we were or are good enough.
We represent the successful background and context in which we must consider the well-documented problem of a distinct lack of diversity in British women’s football. If so many women of color were at the top of the class at Arsenal, Chelsea and England, why has there been such a departure from what represents ‘the best’ or ‘good enough’?
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If, like me, you saw the photo of the Arsenal women’s team that didn’t include any women of color and felt very uncomfortable, I would like to make a positive contribution to the way we identify the causes and drive change in propose the approach to player recruitment. It’s not a new problem. In recent years there has been much commentary on the lack of diversity in women’s football due to professionalisation which has created a geographical divide with areas where historically diverse talent has been discovered.
There has been a decline in the number of young girls from different backgrounds attending academies. However, this does not mean that diverse talent does not exist. What it means is that diverse talent is not always selected to form the best teams in academies and first teams. Why then is there no longer a choice for diverse talent?
This is an emotional topic that often leads many to reduce players from different backgrounds to the assessment of whether they are “good enough” to be selected. After all, no one wants someone to be selected because of their race. I would suggest that given the successful diverse class of women above, it is insulting to assume that players from different backgrounds are not good enough to be picked for the best women’s teams in this country. Every player, regardless of race, should be chosen as good enough until proven otherwise.
I’ll focus on the word chosen emphasizing the conscious and unconscious choices made when recruiting and selecting players. At the highest level of women’s football, only the best can be chosen to fill squads of typically 25 players. This means coaches, athletic directors and recruiting teams have a difficult task.
So how do coaches, athletic directors and recruiters decide who is the best? These choices are often subjective, formed with conscious and unconscious biases, and often stem from a limited talent pool or a limited view of what looks best.
The Arsenal manager, Jonas Eidevall, has been at the club since 2021 and signed two diverse players in his first transfer window with Nikita Parris and Mana Iwabuchi. For various reasons they were unable to do so and so the club ended up with the all-white team photo for this season. Eidevall has admitted that it is a problem and that more needs to be done to solve it. Arsenal said: “It is a priority for the club to continue to strive for greater diversity and inclusivity and create a sense of belonging for everyone associated with the club.”
Other clubs have fared better and Chelsea women’s coach Emma Hayes recently signed Kadeisha Buchanan (Canada), Ashley Lawrence (Canada) and Mia Fishel (USA). All women of color. All players who should rightly be considered “good enough” and the best in their class for their position. Chelsea has access to a number of options around the world and has selected several women.
If we all considered being people who looked, sounded, and thought just like us, we would never have any diversity and you would limit your ability to succeed. We have a responsibility to always consider what is different for us, perhaps best.
I speak from personal experience. Between 2021 and 2022, as Angel City’s first sporting director, I was tasked with recruiting a team in Los Angeles. I had to start from scratch with the privilege of building a team of 25 players. This represented 25 conscious choices of what I deemed best and good enough for each position on the team.
Football recruitment isn’t always easy and often you can’t recruit the players you want. Often these decisions depend on players’ desire to move, salary demands, agent relationships, players’ life decisions, etc. etc. However, when considering three to five players per position, if your starting spot is as wide as possible, the player will give you choose, you are much more likely to have a different profile.
It was important to use the available resources to conduct a global search. I started by working with my team to compile a list of the best players in the world and in the United States. I fished the largest pool possible instead of the small pool I was familiar with.
Angel City didn’t get every player I tried to recruit, but it did lead to a diverse team of 25 players from all backgrounds, races, sexual orientations, and beliefs. Those players had shown, to varying degrees, that they were good enough to play for their country or for successful teams. I recruited them to give them the opportunity to continue to prove themselves at the highest level of professional football.
Angel City has players from Black, Mixed, Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, American and European backgrounds competing in one of the best women’s leagues in the world. Crucially, the diversity of this team is a reflection of the wonderfully diverse fan base in Los Angeles who see themselves represented on their team. We can all agree that when a fanbase and community connects with its team in a way that makes fans feel seen and represented, magic happens. Angel City narrowly missed the playoffs in their first season and went one step further to reach the playoffs in the second season. Success and diversity coexist and go hand in hand.
I am proud that diversity, inclusivity and success are part of my legacy at Aston Villa Women and Angel City FC and it will continue to be central to how I advise the recruitment of sporting directors in the future owned clubs Mercury 13, an investment group I have joined as an investor and advisor committed to a new, reimagined future for women’s football.
Coaches and recruiters in women’s football have a responsibility to move away from lazy player recruitment choices that reflect a narrow vision of what is best, and instead adopt a broader recruitment approach that will inevitably lead to considering diverse players as the best options for the job. The fans within a diverse multicultural football world in Britain deserve a team that represents diverse choices as the best choices. Being diverse and the best cannot remain mutually exclusive.
After all, we are all guided by the fact that some of the best players at all levels of football are diverse. The future of women’s football must continue to reflect that.