Greg Clarke resigns as FA chairman after comments on ‘coloured footballers’

Football Association confirms Clarke’s resignation after highly inappropriate comments made before parliament regarding ethnicity, homosexuality and gender

Greg Clarke resigned as chairman of the Football Association hours after a calamitous appearance before MPs in which he referred to “coloured footballers” and “Asians working in IT”.

Clarke, who is also set to resign from his role as Britain’s Fifa vice-president, also appeared to suggest that coming out as gay is a “life choice” and claimed the lack of female goalkeepers is because young girls do not like having balls kicked at them.

Clarke’s comments were condemned by Kick It Out chairman Sanjay Bhandari as “outdated” and “lazy racist stereotypes”, which represents a “big step backwards” in achieving greater diversity within football.

“As a person who loves football and has given decades of service to our game, it is right that I put the interests of football first,” Clarke said in a statement.

“2020 has been a challenging year and I have been actively considering standing down for some time to make way for a new chair now our CEO transition is complete and excellent executive leadership under Mark Bullingham is established.

“My unacceptable words in front of parliament were a disservice to our game and to those who watch, play, referee and administer it. This has crystallised my resolve to move on.

“I am deeply saddened that I have offended those diverse communities in football that I and others worked so hard to include.

“I would like to thank my friends and colleagues in the game for the wisdom and counsel they have shared over the years and resign from the FA with immediate effect.”

A statement from the FA read: “We can confirm that Greg Clarke has stepped down from his role as our chairman.

“Peter McCormick will step into the role as interim FA Chairman with immediate effect and the FA Board will begin the process of identifying and appointing a new chair in due course.”

After apologising for using the term “coloured footballers” during the hearing, it’s understood that Clarke spoke to members of the FA board to seek support, but tendered his resignation upon the realisation that it was not there.

The 63-year-old appeared before a Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee to be quizzed on his influencing role in the recent Project Big Picture proposals, but also faced questions on the work being carried out by the governing body regarding women’s football and diversity within the game.

In response to a question regarding the difficulty of gay players coming out, Clarke attempted to reference social media abuse that has occurred on other occasions.

He said: “The answer is I don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people from the LGBT community, people from other sports that have come out, and the views that I’ve heard is if I look at what has happened to high-profile female footballers, high-profile coloured footballers, and the abuse they have taken on social media. It is a free-for-all.

“People can see if you're black and if they don't like black people, because they’re filthy racists, they will abuse you anonymously online.

“They can see if you're a woman, some of the high-profile black, female footballers take terrible abuse, absolutely vile abuse.

“I haven't talked directly to gay footballers because I haven’t been able to find any who would meet me but I talk to other people around the game and they say ‘why would you voluntarily sign up for that abuse’?”

Prior to the comment, Clarke made questionable comments regarding the “different career interests” of minority communities, adding: “If you go to the IT department at the FA there’s a lot more south Asians than there are Afro-Caribbeans. They have different career interests.”

He also referred to the process of a player coming out as gay to their teammates as “a life choice”.

For all the steps made forward recently, the comments expressed today are a big step backwards

Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out

The comments were immediately condemned by Bhandari, who chairs the anti-racism group that has driven racial equality within football for nearly 30 years.

“His use of outdated language to describe Black and Asian people as ‘coloured’ is from decades ago and should remain consigned to the dustbin of history. Being gay is not a ‘life choice’ as he claimed too,” Bhandari said.

“I was particularly concerned by the use of lazy racist stereotypes about south Asians and their supposed career preferences... that kind of attitude may well partially explain why south Asians are statistically the most under-represented ethnic minority on the pitch.

“These comments indicate that more still needs to be done to challenge attitudes. For all the steps made forward recently, the comments expressed today are a big step backwards.”

Clarke issued an apology when prompted by MP Kevin Brennan on whether he wished to retract his comment, with it being pointed out that his choice of language hardly justified the diverse and welcoming approach that he had spent so long boasting about.

“If I said it, I deeply apologise for it,” Clarke said. “I am a product of having worked overseas, I worked in the USA for many years where I was required to use the term ‘people of colour’ because that was a product of their diversity legislation and positive discrimination format.

“Sometimes I trip over my words and I apologise.”

The FA added a statement to say: “Greg Clarke is deeply apologetic for the language he used to reference members of the ethnic minority community during the select committee hearing today.

“He acknowledged that using the term ‘coloured’ is not appropriate and wholeheartedly apologised during the hearing.”

However, his comment was picked up on by MP Julian Knight, chair of the DCMS select committee, who highlighted the fact that the incident came three years after a similar incident when Clarke referred to concerns over institutional racism within the FA as “fluff”.

“It’s right that Greg Clarke apologised before the committee, however, this isn’t the first time that the FA has come to grief over these issues. It makes us question their commitment to diversity,” Knight said.

“The question is really: is someone like Mr Clarke who uses such unfortunate phrases and has used unfortunate phrases in the past and has shown to flounder over some of these issues whether or not he is the right person to carry the FA forwards when it has these issues to deal with.”

Former Premier League defender Anton Ferdinand, who wrote: “I appreciate that the FA are doing some good work with their diversity campaign but it’s important the chairman Greg Clarke knows using the term ‘coloured footballers’ to reference people of ethnicity is unacceptable! Clearly education is needed at all levels.”

Ex-England internationals Stan Collymore and Darren Bent were also among those to criticise his comments.