Omar Garrick spoke to referee Shakil Chowdhury as part of our South Asians in Football series, where we explore the lack of representation for the community in the sport across the media landscape, at boardroom level, grassroots participation and first-team players.
There is a lack of South Asian representation in English football and the issue of diversity in the game is more prominent than ever.
Currently, the FA are playing a catch-up game with diversity, but evidently, improvement is being made across certain roles within football.
In data from the FA’s Football Leadership Diversity Code Results , 20 percent of senior leadership roles in the FA, Premier League (PL) and English Football League (EFL) were held by people from BAME backgrounds, beating their target of 17.8%.
Coaching roles have seen a massive increase in the amount of BAME representation too. The original target was to ensure 25% of hires were from a Black, Asian or Mixed Heritage background. This was reached, hitting a tally of 50%.
Despite the obvious improvement in some places, a lot of sectors in the FA still aren’t representative. For example, although there’s been an improvement in the diversity of coaches, just six percent of top management jobs in the UK are held by those from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background. Clearly, there’s still some work to do.
In particular, there is a lack of South Asian representation throughout English football and there are multiple areas within the sport where improvement needs to be made.
South Asians with the whistle
One area which is affected by the lack of diversity is refereeing. Just 2000 out of 28,000 referees in the FA are from BAME backgrounds. It’s why I’m asking for the Football Association to do something about it.
Shakil Chowdhury, 22, has been a referee with the Hertfordshire FA for six years and is one of those 2000. He states his goal in life is to one day become a Premier League referee.
Asked if the future scares him, he replied: “Yes and no. It’s exciting and scary. Obviously, I want to reach the top and you have to be positive. I’m excited, for sure.
“My goal is to become a Premier League referee. It’s a step-by-step process, but I’m putting in the hard work to get there. If you set a high standard, you can become anything.”
The rigours of refereeing
From officiating Arsenal Women under-16s to men’s semi-professional football matches, he has refereed a range of age groups on his journey in refereeing.
Being a referee is regarded by many as one of the toughest sporting jobs in the world.
Cries from the terraces when a decision goes against their team is something no one would want to be on the end of, but Shakil, of Bangladeshi heritage, has spent most of his life wanting to go into football and realised he had to develop mental strength to achieve his goals.
He said: “ I'll be honest at the time, my parents couldn't really afford to send me away somewhere to play football, so I had to decide ‘Do I carry on playing for fun or do I become the referee?’ So, at 17, I said the best decision right now is to stop playing and go and become a referee.
“Pressure is also a big thing. A lot of people would be scared to go into it [refereeing].
“It depends how mentally strong you are. You need to expect that people aren’t going to agree with you and you have to learn how to deal with it.
“There were times when the whole crowd was on my back and I couldn’t wait to blow the full-time whistle. Now, I don’t even listen to the criticism.”
South Asia needs an icon
Football is the biggest sport in the world. An estimated four billion people in the world follow it, but still, there seems to be a lack of representation at elite level from South Asian countries.
Although they make up 7% of the population, just 0.25% of professional footballers are from a British Asian background.
Shakil feels that the lack of resources and support in South Asian countries might have contributed to this because the passion exists.
“I went to Bangladesh in 2018 and they’re crazy about the World Cup,” he says.
“But they don’t really have a football icon to look up to. They also don’t have the same facilities as we do over here, which makes it difficult.
“The FA need to send more coaches over there. You could have the next Lionel Messi, but no one may ever know because they don’t have the same resources as we do.”
If there was a change in the amount of resources available, there’s nothing stopping football booming in this part of the world.
Family support can hold us back
Having a supportive family is always helpful in achieving your goals and in a profession like football, you need it because you're always open to scrutiny.
If you have support from those who care, it’s always going to be a confidence boost.
Shakil admits he was ‘lucky’ to have a support network around him, but acknowledges family heritage as a reason for why we haven’t seen more South Asian people in the game;
He says: “I was lucky in that I had a supportive family, who thought it was cool to go into refereeing. But I also think there are Asian families who don’t get the support they need to go into that sort of industry.
“People come up to me and say it’s amazing that I’m an Asian referee.
“A lot of Asian families don’t take football seriously though. They want you to become a doctor, lawyer or accountant. It’s because they don’t get guidance from anyone else.
Currently, the cost to do the FA’s Referee Course is £135 – a price that some families may feel is wiser to go into education.
The cost to do your FA Level One in coaching is also £160. When you have other priorities, like tuition fees and educational costs, it gets expensive and this might disillusion South Asian families from allowing their children to pursue a career in football.
“Football facilities, like sending players to academies and courses, is expensive,” Shakil adds.
“I feel like Asian parents have other priorities, such as paying for tutors to prioritise studies. There’s no support for them.
“I had an Asian friend who wanted to join a local club, but his parents told him to leave it. They thought he didn’t need to play for a team. They said ‘you can play at school’ instead.
“Some Asian parents might have a lack of understanding or they don’t really know what’s the outcome if their child gets involved. If they were educated, there would be an improvement.”
So, how do we solve this problem?
Be proactive not reactive
Nothing can be done to improve the representation of South Asian people in football unless we raise awareness of the problem.
Football’s elite governing bodies, like the FA, need to be more proactive in encouraging people from South Asian communities to pursue a career in the sport.
Although he thinks effort is being made to encourage South Asian referees, Shakil thinks more work is needed because he feels he had to work harder than others to achieve his goals;
“I feel like the FA are trying to encourage more South Asian referees,” he says.
“For example, someone higher up than me wanted me to help this other Asian kid reach the top, so they gave him to me to give him some guidance.
“I do think I’ve had to work harder to get to being equal [to other referees]. You know when some say, ‘People of colour have to work harder in life to get to where they are?’, that’s what I think I’ve had to do. Because of the hard work, I’m now equal. What else is it going to be [other than race]? I’ve been refereeing the same matches as anyone else.”
There is evidence that the FA are making an effort to improve diversity across all areas of football, but the failures of the past still continue to haunt the present. People from ethnic minority backgrounds still feel they have to work harder than those who come from a white background.
What happens next?
Things are beginning to pick up pace regarding South Asian representation in refereeing and football, but that isn’t a cause for celebration – we’re still far behind from where we need to be!
In April 2021, Sikh brothers Bhups and Sunny Singh Gill made English Football League history by becoming the first pair of British South Asians to officiate in the Championship match between Bristol City and Nottingham Forest.
Despite this, there has never been a South Asian to officiate a Premier League match and Shakil believes the FA and other governing bodies need to educate Asian families into seeing football as a profession.
“The FA should offer more support to Asian families to portray football as a profession, not just a sport,” Shakil says.” They don’t have that.
“Some Asian parents might have a lack of understanding or they don’t really know what’s the outcome if their child gets involved. If they were educated, there would be an improvement.
“I feel it starts with the parents. You need support from all of your family. If you feel like you adore football, you need them to say, ‘go on, enjoy yourself and do what you want’. There needs to be some freedom instead of telling you to be a lawyer or something similar. The only way they can learn is through education and that starts at the top.”
Shakil has been very lucky in having a supportive family, but not everyone has that.
It’s why the points raised about football needing to encourage South Asian families are extremely important. Although it applies to referees, it has to apply across all of the game because, as evidence shows, there’s a lack of representation for South Asian players in the PL and EFL.
We’re along the right path, but there’s definitely much more work to be done to improve South Asian diversity in football because we’re still so far behind.
Will the FA and other bodies listen? They won’t unless we keep shouting.
Read part one and two in the series here:
Samaira Khan: Thierry Henry comparisons and the mum and businesswoman pioneering for South Asians.
Sky Sports star Dharmesh Sheth on his rise as a South Asian in football media
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