Kick It Out announced that it has logged a historic 1,744 discrimination complaints spanning the professional tiers, grassroots football, and online platforms during the inaugural year of its Football United initiative. The surge in reports, the organization explained, is partly linked to a noticeable uptick in anti‑immigrant rhetoric across the sport, but it also reflects the success of newly forged reporting pathways with partners such as Her Game Too, The Frank Soo Foundation and Football v Homophobia. These collaborations have empowered more individuals and groups to come forward, resulting in over one hundred submissions through the fresh channels alone in the 2025/26 season. While the headline figure might suggest a worsening of football’s cultural climate, Kick It Out cautions against a simplistic interpretation.
The rise in complaints should be read as a sign that marginalized communities are gaining confidence in the system and that the charity’s outreach efforts are bearing fruit. The organization expects the network of reporting partners to expand further in the 2026/27 season, creating even more avenues for people to flag abusive behaviour. Samuel Okafor, chief executive of Kick It Out, commented on the findings: “At a time when discrimination is on the rise and the sport needs decisive action to become truly inclusive and reflective of all communities, football must stand together to confront these challenges. Our Impact Report demonstrates a year of progress made alongside both longstanding and new allies, yet we recognise that deeper collaboration will enable us to strengthen our policy work, campaigning, education and reporting programmes, ultimately making the game a more welcoming space for everyone.” The Year One Impact Report, released on Tuesday, underscores the magnitude of the task ahead as Kick It Out strives to embed inclusion throughout the football ecosystem.
The report reviews the first twelve months of Football United, a five‑year blueprint launched in September 2025 that is built around four core aspirations: universal inclusion, representation on the pitch, leadership opportunities off the pitch, and a collective stand against discrimination. Key achievements highlighted in the document include: * Over 11,000 individuals accessed the charity’s education programmes, ranging from workshops for young players to training sessions for club staff. * 583 participants completed the "Raise Your Game" development scheme, designed to nurture leadership and anti‑discrimination skills among emerging talent. * 148 people took part in Fan Education initiatives aimed at fostering respectful behaviour among supporters.
A notable partnership with Guinness 0.0 enabled Kick It Out to extend its educational outreach into public houses, where more than 3,000 Greene King employees received training on recognising and responding to discriminatory incidents. This move reflects a broader strategy to tackle abuse not only on the field but also in the social spaces that surround the sport. The 2025/26 season also marked a milestone for transparency: professional clubs published workforce diversity statistics for the first time under FA Rule N. This new requirement shines a light on the composition of leadership roles across clubs, offering a clearer picture of representation at the highest levels of the game.
In addition to data collection, Kick It Out collaborated with over 20 partner organisations to draft proposals for the Independent Football Regulator. These submissions aim to embed board‑level accountability for equality, diversity and inclusion, and to set concrete representation targets for club boards and senior management positions. The charity’s work over the past year has also addressed a spectrum of pressing issues, including online abuse, sexism and misogyny, faith‑based discrimination, and the inclusion of under‑represented groups.
By working closely with specialist partners, Kick It Out has helped shape guidance and interventions that target these specific forms of prejudice. Okafor added a forward‑looking perspective: “This is only the first year of the strategy, so we know there is so much more to achieve, but we have ambitious plans for the coming season where we will expand grassroots anti‑discrimination education, increase Fan Education delivery with support from the Premier League and grow Raise Your Game. We are determined to keep building a game where everyone is included, and everyone is united in tackling discrimination wherever it happens.” The report concludes that while the raw number of complaints has risen, the underlying trend is one of empowerment: more victims and witnesses feel able to report wrongdoing, and the sport’s governing bodies are becoming more accountable. Kick It Out’s continued emphasis on partnership, education, and transparent data aims to translate this momentum into lasting cultural change across football.
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