Racism in Sport: Options Paper

Over recent years, there have been a number of examples of racism in sport, and as a global law firm we understand that these issues are important to our people and communities, including our employees and our clients – it is important that we are thought leaders in this area.

Against this backdrop, our lawyers have worked on the Racism in sport: options paper. Led by Daniel Adeyemi, a lawyer in our Responsible Business team, the paper draws on the expertise of our D&I professionals, sports litigators, IP and public lawyers to analyse the current legal, regulatory and governance landscape and makes a series of recommendations to stamp out racism from modern day sports.

In this Options Paper we provide an overview of recent examples of racism in sport, the issues found when focusing on diversity without adequately dealing with inclusion within sport and sports organisations, and the potential legal, regulatory and other practical solutions available to interested parties.

The examples detailed in this Paper show just how far sport in the UK must go before those involved can begin to claim that there is no racism within the games we cherish. In recent years, various sports organisations have shown a willingness to accept that things are not as they should be, and have begun to work towards a fairer, anti-racist world of sports. However, there is still a long way to go.