Bevan on whether existing recruitment policies in football are open enough: "I don't feel it is happening, no [...] my main concern is identifying the talent and making sure the BAME coaches with the right licenses are interviewed"
Monday 27 July 2020 20:40, UK
LMA chief executive Richard Bevan says key concrete action is needed to accelerate the number of BAME coaches, managers and leaders in football.
There are currently 35 pro-licensed coaches in the game who would regard themselves as being from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.
Bevan says there is continued debate between the League Manager's Association (LMA) and the Football Association as to how to increase those numbers to better reflect wider society.
"Diversity is such an important topic as we have seen over the last few months, I think the stakeholders in the game have a number of key initiatives and there is good debate going on," he told Sky Sports News.
"What we have to ramp up are some key concrete actions. The LMA's main focus is identifying BAME players who want to become coaches, coaches who want to become managers and managers who want to become leaders.
"We need greater investment in education, we need the FA to fast-track and accelerate, we only have 35 BAME pro-license coaches currently in the game. We need to really accelerate that number."
Bevan urged clubs and stakeholders to employ open recruitment policies and insists only concentrated "key concrete" action will result in the change required.
When asked if he felt recruitment policies were open enough as they are, he replied: "I don't feel it is happening, no.
"That is something that we will be addressing with the FA, my main concern is identifying the talent and making sure the BAME coaches with the right licenses are interviewed.
"The other thing we must do is make sure the BAME coaches have the confidence that there will be an opportunity once they have gone through the A-license and the pro-license.
"That's an important focus for the mentors and the one-to-one career guidance support, coupled with an open recruitment policy - we need the help of all the clubs and stakeholders to achieve that."
