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Former England international and director of women's football at West Ham Eniola Aluko has backed the introduction of BAME targets in the Premier League in a bid to "find a Black Pep Guardiola or a Black Jurgen Klopp." Aluko supported the introduction of targets for the UK's top sports when appearing before the UK government's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday. - FC TV: Stream FC Daily on ESPN+
- Insider Notebook: Pogba open to new United deal A study by the Telegraph found that just 3% of members of national sporting bodies are Black. "There has to be something intentional about change," she said. "When you rely on self-regulation and people doing it themselves, they tend to just fall back into a comfort zone and what they've always done. I think we do need a target." "I think we need a target, 30% is a good one. Whether owners or directors like it or not, this is what the game needs to do." Aluko said there is a lot of confusion about what people are calling for when they ask for greater Black representation in football. "There's this misconception that you should be given a job because you're Black. That's not what we're saying," she said. "I think the talent base is there. There is a lot of BAME representation certainly in academies. You will definitely see a lot more black coaches at academy level so it says to me that there is a halfway pool being created but its not allowed to rise up to the top. "We want to find a Black Pep Guardiola or a Black Jurgen Klopp. "We're not going to find them unless we look and incentivise the pathway to find them." "There's a lot of recycling of the same people in the game and if you do something like a target or a quota, as I mentioned with the homegrown quota rule, you will start to see recruitment behaviour change." Paul Cleal, who advises organisations like the Premier League on diversity and inclusion, also backed the introduction of targets and labelled it "disappointing" the sport had such low numbers of BAME people in the higher ranks. "I think most bodies would need to have at least two [BAME board members]," he said. "I think targets, yes, and I think probably ambitious ones would be appropriate." Aluko also said she had witnessed a change in football since she started playing and praised the Premier League for the steps it had taken in recent weeks. Before being named West Ham's first women's sporting director, Aluko played for Birmingham City, Chelsea and Juventus before retiring in January. "I think there has certainly been a lot of progress from when I started playing football 20-plus years ago. There was absolutely no one I could look to in the game that looked like me, either as a woman or a Black woman.," she added.
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