That's a lot of white...

[Janik]

Yes, that the other part of the English demographic is what is really missing. Which is not what is starkly obvious when putting the Men's and Women's team photos side-to-side. If England is 81-82% white and 6-7% black (I can't remember the decimals from the last census, but I think the first sig fig is right in both cases) then there are 11-13% of the population, 1 or 2 players in an XI and 3 in a 23-person squad, obviously missing in both cases.

[My Name Is Ian]

The responsibility for the little shitstorm today is apparently Julia Hartley-Brewer, who shared it, presumably with some characteristic misrepresentation or other (I don't know what and don't care; since I've had her blocked on Twitter for years, I'm not going to be going looking). Since then I've been told I'm not white twice and Jewish once. Ho hum. All this on my day off, too.

[Sporting]

Stats say one thing, but it's hard to deny that black players have been eased out of/away from England's women's squad in recent years.

[Janik]

Surely the appropriate comparative group is women under 35. I suspect that the proportions are a lot higher in that age group than the population as a whole.

I don't get why you people might think that. Immigration is nowhere near as significant as it is portrayed to be. And London and other cities are not actually big enough to skew the overall numbers that much.
Even if it were true, a 25% relative increase in a small population group just pushes 6.5% of the general population up to 8.2% in a specific age and gender group. That jumps the expected number of black faces in an 11-person Football team from 0.7 of a player to 0.9 of a player.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Right... but there are only three Arsenal players in total in this England squad (Mead, Parris, Williamson). If one of those three is black, well that is proportionate to the local populations you are talking about.

Across the whole country 6-7% are black. That is 1 in 14 English people. 3 out of 23 of the current England Women's squad are black. Disproportionality many.

The issue here is we are using men's Football as a comparator, as if this was somehow a pure reflective selection and unaffected by social pressures. The 'very good' She Kicks article above dives head first into this fallacy in it's opening logic. With such a shaky start, the argument that follows is thoroughly undermined.
We can ask why Men's Football has such a disproportionality high number of black players involved. It is, in fact, a really good question. Our answers are unlikely to be that Football is some kind of shining beacon of inclusivity (see parenthesis in the sentence coming). So why would that England Men's team have around 5 times as many black faces as the population of England would have one predict (and infinitely fewer South Asian ones...). How about that it benefits accidentally from significantly reduced opportunity for young black males to make successful, impactful careers in other areas of society, so they focus much more on making it as Footballers than their white peers? If that is the driver then that diverse (and unrepresentative of the make-up of the nation) England Men's team is actually an outcome of structural racism in action.

As with so many things to do with Women's Football, we really should deal with it on it's own merits and not expect it to be a mirror image of the Men's game.

Honestly, that's bullshit.

For starters, less than 80% of the population of England were White British in 2011. White people are very overrepresented in the team and this is the most ethnically diverse england squad for ages. Secondly the average age of black, asian and mixed-race people in England skews much lower (10 years for Black people, 20 years for mixed race people).

Over the past few years Black footballers and ex footballers have identified several structural factors preventing black footballers (and indeed working class footballers of other ethnicities) from accessing the highest levels of women's professional football, that have led to a decrease in the representation of black footballers at the highest levels. Just bleating about demographics does nothing to counter the lack of accessible training facilities or racism in the England setup.

How much of England's squad is working class? It's harder to measure, because of the lack of ethnic diversity is more visible. But when there was fuck all money in women's football it was dominated by working class women (of all ethnicities) and now it's very middle class.

No such structural factors limit young white middle-class footballers of any class background from accessing the resources of men's football as far as I'm aware. Like inclusion ought to be removing structural and cultural barriers to participation rather than consulting the demographic tables to ensure you have the correct proportion of every minority group.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

It's interesting that France is as white as England, but their women's national team has always been extremely ethnically diverse (and is much closer to the ethnic make-up of the men's team). What do they do differently there?

[Patrick Thistle]

I'd like to know more about the class thing. White male players seem to be more likely to come from poorer backgrounds and have lower educational attainment. I don't have stats but if male football skews towards kids from poorer backgrounds then there will be more black kids coming through. The question isn't whether black players are over-represented but whether the poorest segment of society is "over-represented". That might explain the lack of Asian representations given the highly-stereotypical-yet-often-true emphasis on education and studying for a profession in that demographic.

Another side of it is that football and other entertainments are arenas where black men are permitted to succeed without encountering as many barriers as black men in other professions, maybe. So football would naturally attract black men looking to succeed in a structurally racist society that closes off other avenues.

[Hot Pepsi]

Those are all good points.

I too didn't understand why we should see men's football as any kind of a benchmark.

However, the decline in women of color in the England set-up, even if they're still representative of the population as a whole, does support the idea that the FA needs to think about accessibility.

It would also be worth knowing how many girls/women, in each group participate in sports overall and in which sports. There aren't many Elyse Perry's out there. All the sports are essentially competing for the interest and loyalty of athletes and fans.

In North America, at least, so many discussions about getting more POC into hockey or lacrosse or swimming or whatever seem to ignore the rather obvious fact that other sports - basketball, football and soccer - are so deeply ingrained in the culture of those communities, that it's very hard for any other sports to get the attention of kids in those communities, even if they could fix the economic barriers and eliminate all traces of racism (which, of course, they haven't).

Exposure and even access aren't enough to shift that. You have to make those kids feel wanted. And that's even harder to do with girls, perhaps, because in a lot of places, the only way girls can get into it is by playing on mostly boys teams and/or for male coaches and/or in pick-up game scenes dominated by boys.

Eventually, if enough girls do that and persist, they'll have enough for an all girls team. But there's that catch-22 that has to be overcome first to get to that point.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'd like to know more about the class thing. White male players seem to be more likely to come from poorer backgrounds and have lower educational attainment. I don't have stats but if male football skews towards kids from poorer backgrounds then there will be more black kids coming through. The question isn't whether black players are over-represented but whether the poorest segment of society is "over-represented". That might explain the lack of Asian representations given the highly-stereotypical-yet-often-true emphasis on education and studying for a profession in that demographic.

I'd imagine - without knowing the data - that it's much more true in the men's game than the women's. Because firstly the scouting in the men's game will go wider, and secondly because the rewards in the men's game are much more creating more incentive for people to use that as a route out of poverty. I don't imagine that the number of women footballers who are earning enough to make a huge difference in their lives is 5% of what there are in the men's game. Probably much less.

The women's game is more likely to suffer from the same stuff that US sport often does: needing wealthy and committed parents who're able and willing to pay for their girls to go through training camps, and - as observed upthread - to drive them out to the training grounds every day. My guess is that clubs are far more engaged in the boy footballers who might make the first team and therefore save 100 million quid on transfer fees, more willing to invest time and money, organise transport and accommodation and so on.

Basically, my guess would be that there's more incentive for boys from a poor background to succeed and there's more infrastructure to support them. For girls there would be much more reliance on parental support which would require both some cash, and a parent to have free time.

[Patrick Thistle]

It's also recognised in public health that girls from poorer backgrounds are less likely to engage in exercise and to experience obesity. So that doesn't help if black girls are more likely to be living in more deprived communities.

e.g.

The study, led by the University of Strathclyde, has found that children from more deprived families were nearly three times more likely not to be involved in sport than those from less deprived families. They were also more than twice as likely to have obesity by the time they were in P1 and nearly less than a quarter likely to have safe outdoor spaces to play in.

https://www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathcl...sicalactivity/

And then if you move all the academies out into less deprived communities that will exacerbate the problem.

I'd add that shared spaces in the inner city are often dominated by boys. I draw on my own experience living in the most ethnically diverse council ward in Wales. There are fenced in urban astroturf pitches in both of the parks near my house. (One was built by UEFA as a gift to the city when the Champions league final was held here.) Both pitches are packed every evening with boys and young men. Almost all of them are black. (More.specifically, Somali) I've never seen a girl playing with them.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Anita Asante weighing in here. Nothing especially new but it bears repeating
https://www.theguardian.com/football...droidApp_Other

[Nocturnal Submission]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62270969

[Satchmo Distel]

This thread needs a bump. Superb work from several posters. OTF at its best.