Oxfordshire FA is delighted to announce that the Association has been successful in gaining the Foundation Level of the Equality Standard for Sport from The FA.

The National Standard for Equality is a nationally-recognised framework that assists County Football Associations with embedding equality at the highest level of their organisation, and communicating and sharing that commitment with its staff and partners.

The Oxfordshire FA have renewed their Equality in Sport Foundation Level first gained back in 2014. As we work towards the Preliminary Level over the next season, it was important that we ensured we did so with an up-dated base to build upon. Led by Football Development Manager Michael Thurlow and Chief Executive Ian Mason at staff level, Interim Chair Brian King helped support the Board members to undertake their training.

Ian Mason said “It is vitally important that we do all we can to promote equality, diversity and inclusion across all of our operations and delivery to make everyone welcome to be involved in local football. Opportunities are growing for everyone to be involved in a way that suits their aspirations and lifestyles. We need to ensure that we respect the abilities and availability of our communities, understand their lifestyles and provide more opportunities. The days of our national game only being played by one group on the same day, nine months of the year are gone, everyone is now welcome to be involved all year round.”

Shortly the Oxfordshire FA will be refreshing their Inclusion Advisory Group membership to ensure that there is representation from our local communities and their voice is heard. A recruitment process will follow giving everyone but hopefully community influencers to come forwards.

To help us ensure that we are representative of the communities then we also need to know the demographics of these communities. If you are already involved in the local game then please, next time you log into your FA account (FAN) then please take the time to add your equality data. Whilst it is personal to you, it remain anonymous within the various systems and we are unable to match it to you or your records. Please help us to help you and others in your local community with this knowledge.