The Premier League is committed to tackling discrimination and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion across all areas of football. This is underpinned by a series of policies and practices, including reporting measures and pastoral care, as well as staff training across the League.
The League has supported the Rainbow Laces campaign since 2017 and has developed programmes and initiatives to support clubs in creating LGBTQ+ inclusivity across all areas of the game.
Premier League clubs work hard to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in everything they do, from the atmosphere and experience in their stadiums to the many projects they run in their communities. This includes:
Player care and staff training
LGBTQ+ inclusion is a key element of player care and support initiatives, which are made available for all team age groups across Premier League clubs. This includes training and workshops for player care staff and ensuring players can access confidential support and advice for those who are exploring sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Premier League also offers training for League and club staff with a focus on understanding what it means to be an ally and why it is important to have visible and active allies in work and in football.
Premier League Fans Fund
Through the Premier League Fans Fund, grants are provided to clubs across the Premier League, EFL, National League, Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship to strengthen connections between them, their fans and local communities. This includes programmes designed to support members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Using the Premier League Fans Fund, EFL League One side Stockport County have launched their first LGBTQ+ team, County Pride FC, while the fund also helped the establishment of West Bromwich Albion's first LGBTQ+ supporters group, Proud Baggies.
Arsenal have used the Fund to encourage females to participate in sport and recently Arsenal and England Women's forward Alessia Russo visited a programme to see it in action.
Educational resources
The Premier League, through the Premier League Charitable Fund, has developed resources and programmes for coaches, teachers and leaders in schools and communities to help promote positive attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community.
Free downloadable educational resources are available to all primary schools across England and Wales via Premier League Primary Stars. These include materials and lesson plans suitable for five to 11-year-olds focusing on topics such as diversity, inclusion and allyship.
See: PL Primary Stars Active Allies resources
The Premier League also provides resources to engage young people on topics such as building stronger communities free from homophobic, transphobic and biphobic language. These sessions are delivered by clubs in their communities through the Premier League Kicks and Inspires programmes.
Staff training - Allies Training session
The Premier League offers training for all League and club staff with a focus on understanding what it means to be an ally and why it is important to have visible and active allies in work and in football.
Fans for Diversity
The Premier League provides funding to the Football Supporters’ Association and Kick It Out (KIO) for their joint programme Fans for Diversity, which supports the development of all under-represented fan groups – including LGBTQ+ groups. In addition, the Premier League funds KIO to support anti-discrimination work focused on LGBTQ+ through advocacy, training and education.
Premier League Observer Programme
The Premier League Safety and Security Observer Programme operates at all 380 matches across the season is first of its kind in domestic football. It enables the League to take a more tailored and evidence-based approach to safety, security and service while developing further understanding about key risk issues and priorities at an individual club and League-wide level. This includes all incidents of discrimination.
Tackling online abuse: Premier League online abuse monitoring and reporting systems
Since 2019, the Premier League has been proactively monitoring social media platforms to identify abusive content directed at players and report it for removal.
In June 2020, the Premier League launched an online abuse reporting system to support players, managers and their families who receive discriminatory abuse on social media. In October 2023 this system was made available for fans to report discrimination targeted at players and others within the game. This includes all forms of abuse, including homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.
Fans can also report online discriminatory abuse they see targeted at Premier League players, managers, coaches, match officials and their families directly at premierleague.com/reportdiscrimination.
The Premier League reports and investigates each incident working with the police, Crown Prosecution Service (in the UK) and other relevant authorities in the UK and internationally to take legal action wherever possible.
Enhanced anti-discrimination measures
In August 2021 the Premier League announced new enhanced anti-discrimination measures, including permanent bans from Premier League matches, for any individual found to have behaved in a discriminatory or abusive way towards any club employee, player, match official, matchday steward or fans attending fixtures. This covers behaviour in-person and online.
