Level the playing field: Why are there still so few Black referees?
As the Premier League kicks off this weekend you're unlikely to see a non-white official on the pitch. With so many initiatives to improve diversity in football – why is refereeing lagging behind?
When news broke in early June that former Premier League referee Uriah Rennie had died, the football world mourned a pioneer of the game. The first person from a Black, Asian, or mixed heritage background to referee a top-flight football match in England, Rennie was a trailblazer known for his charisma, commanding presence on the pitch, and consistent dedication to community and charity work off it.
Despite Rennie's impact on English football, for 15 years after his retirement in 2008, he remained the only official from an ethnic minority background ever employed by the Premier League. It wasn't until late 2023, when Sam Allison oversaw a relegation scrap between Sheffield United and Luton, that this damning record was broken.
Speaking to The Lead in 2023, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, the author of the novel Your Show, which dramatises Rennie's life and career, said: “Football is a beautiful, rich, colourful, diverse game, and we need to see that across coaches, managers, and referees. But it's definitely changing. Good appointments are being made, lots of training is going on.”
Those changes have started to bear fruit. The appointment of Raj Randhawa as the English Football Association's National Refereeing EDI Delivery Manager has had impressive results. Focused on improving equity, diversity, and inclusion within the domestic sport, he has helped initiate talent ID events for referees of colour and mentoring programmes for those showing promise, while the FA Core project has helped fast-track talented officials up the pyramid.
Crucially, the ongoing work of influential pressure groups and stakeholders like BAMREF and Kick It Out has helped spur the FA into action, with inspiring voices like Aji Ajibola and Joel Mannix continually campaigning for greater inclusivity within officiating, as well as new official guidelines being published on the FA’s website.
“When I started, the representation figures were very low,” Randhawa explained recently. “Only 2 per cent of match officials were from Black, Asian, and Mixed Heritage populations. Comparing that to national census data, those communities combined totalled about 16-18 per cent, so we were well behind that. It was important we delivered some targeted action fast.”
That figure has since risen to 10 per cent, a rapid increase that should not be overlooked. Still, key decision makers within the FA understand more progress is needed.
“We've built a very good foundation, but we haven't put our feet up and said ‘We've hit our targets now, we've met the strategy’ – we're being proactive,” says Randhawa. “[With] talent ID events coming up, [and] a mentoring programme to support trainee referees from these communities, we're doing ever more to keep on that trajectory.”
We caught up with Hickson-Lovence to ask how the current landscape compares to his early days as an amateur referee. “I feel really encouraged by what we're seeing,” he tells The Lead. “I suppose that positivity comes from years of being incredibly annoyed by the very little that was happening previously in terms of encouraging Black referees, referees of colour, working-class referees… it was demoralising when it felt like the system wasn't fair. I wanted to quit the vocation that I love.
In 2023/24, he started refereeing again, and he said it felt so different this time around. “I had a really good relationship with the guys at the Norfolk County FA, they championed and supported me, and they were probably devastated that I got injured when I did [in September 2024].”
Behind the scenes, Hickson-Lovence notes shifts in how the marking system works for referee observations, with the criteria “less about finding faults in a referee's performance”. Randhawa notes how there are greater opportunities for officials to advance and move up the pyramid if they perform well.
“Historically, you would have to wait until the end of the season to see if you get promoted, whereas there are now different windows in the season for promotions,” he explains. “That helps the referees who are committed and inspired to reach the top of the game.”
New routes to succeed
Pathways to the top are crucial; the FA may have employed more referees of colour in the last two years, but ensuring that the brightest are promoted when suitable is the next key step. After all, the Premier League still only has two referees from ethnic minority backgrounds today: Sam Allison and Sunny Singh Gill, the league's first British South Asian referee. Between them, they have overseen only five top-flight matches in total, and questions have been asked about whether progression has been too slow.
It's also important to consider the pressure being placed on refs like Allison, who are viewed as representing a marginalised community, whether they like it or not.
Today, referees face more scrutiny from fans than ever before, and several concerning reports show that this often leads to horrific verbal and even physical abuse against officials. This is both in-person and online, with Founder of United Against Online Abuse Mohammed Ben Sulayem stating “the scale of abuse is continuing to grow against football officials.”
In this climate, where white referees at the top level of British football face abhorrent levels of abuse, the reality is that referees of colour are heavily exposed to racism and hatred on top. According to Hickson-Lovence, “it would be better to have safety in numbers” to help reduce the amount of scrutiny currently placed on Sam Allison.
“The hard work he's put in, the climb that he's had, hasn't been celebrated,” he reflects. “There's been criticism from some quarters in terms of why he's there and if he's good enough. I don't think Howard and the PGMOL [Professional Game Match Officials Board, the body responsible for overseeing British professional refereeing] would've put him there if he wasn't good enough.”
Clearly, things are going in the right direction, with the FA's announcement that two new officials from ethnic minority backgrounds – Farai Hallam and Ruebyn Ricardo – will join a newly-created supplementary list for the select group in the 2025/26 season. But there's still a lack of diversity in professional refereeing, which is not down to a lack of talent; but is a reflection of the historic bias (both overt and unconscious) of those responsible for overseeing British officiating.
Figures like Raj Randhawa, with support from stakeholders like BAMREF, are helping to change things within the FA, and the initial progress has been good. But there's still a long way to go. According to Statista, around 43 per cent of Premier League players are Black, and around 34 per cent of EFL (tiers 2-4) players. Campaigners won't relax until officiating starts to reflect this diversity.
The Lead approached the PGMOL for comment but received no response by the time of publication.■
About the author: Fred Garratt-Stanley is a freelance journalist who writes about culture, politics, football, and pubs. He's based in London and has written for a wide range of publications including The Lead, The Guardian, NME, Huck, and Pellicle.
It's because of the same shit as in America just now. Racism.
Really interesting, we watched the Bournemouth match last night and asked the same question