This month kicked-off with the second part of the delivery of our antisemitism in football workshop for Wingate and Finchley youth squads, from U12s up to U18s, which saw Jewish and non-Jewish youth footballers develop their understandings of antisemitism and how it manifests in grassroots and professional football.
The emphasis this month was very much on the grassroots-side of the sport, with our project manager travelling to Lancashire and West Riding County Football Associations to deliver our workshop to the full staff teams of each organisation. These County FAs both found the workshop to be relevant, due to their proximities to the second and third-largest Jewish communities in the UK – Manchester and Leeds.
The participants’ understandings of the Jewish community in Great Britain were hugely developed in these workshops, and many misconceptions surrounding the Jewish people were cleared-up as a result.
We also hosted a regional workshop at Northampton Town Football Club for Midlands-based clubs and County FAs, where attendees included personnel from Northampton County FA, Bedfordshire County FA, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, Lincoln City, Notts County, Burton Albion and more.
We attended a number of meetings to discuss our effort to tackle antisemitism in sport with representatives from Kick It Out and a number of other relevant organisations to speak about how we can deliver this antisemitism education more widely.
We were also invited to attend events hosted by the London County FA and the National Football Association to discuss best practices in the space of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
“Thank you so much for coming across, there has been nothing but praise and positive comments since the presentation.” - Leigh Jeffrey, Football Development Officer, Lancashire County FA.
For more information about our ‘Tackling Antisemitism in Sport’ project, please click here.