Football Association to promote LGBTQ ‘inclusion’ by joining London Pride parade for first time

The parade attracts a crowd of over one million people to promote diversity and equality among the LGBTQ community

The FA will join a crowd of over one million at the the Pride in London parade (Getty)

The Football Association will march in the annual Pride in London parade on Saturday for the first time, the national governing body has announced.

The parade, which starts near Oxford Circus at noon and finishes on Whitehall, celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and questioning community and promotes diversity and equality.

According to the event’s organisers, FA staff will be joining a crowd of up to one million people at this year’s parade.

In a statement, FA chief executive Martin Glenn said: “As English football’s governing body, the FA aims to lead by example in helping to shift the culture in our sport to one of inclusion.

“Pride is one of the most iconic social and cultural ‘moments’, not just in this country but across the world. We believe football has a unique global quality of connecting people irrespective of whom they are or where they’re from.

“As an organisation, the FA has been doing increasingly more to immerse LGBTQ groups and individuals in the game, so this felt like a natural next step in this journey.”

While Glenn is correct in saying the FA has worked hard to be more inclusive as an organisation, discrimination remains a significant problem in football, particularly in the men’s game.

Several members of the England team at the Women’s World Cup in France have come out but there are no openly gay male footballers currently playing in British professional football, and campaign groups such as Kick It Out have reported a rise in homophobic abuse at games and on social media.

PA