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Current and former players from the Premier League, English Football League (EFL), Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship met with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston to discuss tackling discrimination and abuse in the game, as part of a series on the “Future of Football”.

Players who attended the roundtable event included Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson and Rinsola Babajide, Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings and Watford’s Troy Deeney, alongside former players such as Karen Carney and Anton Ferdinand.

Many of those joining the call shared their powerful experiences of the abuse they or their fellow footballers have faced, and the action they would like to see to tackle this problem.

The meeting was called by Ministers ahead of them introducing new laws to hold social media companies to account for online harms, and a fan-led review of football governance.

Ministers listened to players talk about their direct experiences of discrimination, and the challenges in reporting and getting help with this. 

Representatives from the football industry also talked about the need to drive forward diversity in leadership in the game, and welcomed recent steps taken by clubs to support this.

MInisters in turn shared the plans for changing the law to tackle online harms.

The Bill, due to come before Parliament in 2021, will require tech firms to take action so that what is unacceptable in the street and in stands, is unacceptable online too.

The Government is taking soundings from a variety of figures in football, prior to formally launching a fan led governance review, as committed to in the 2019 manifesto which will shape reform of the national game.

Ministers opened the series in November bringing together leaders from across football where they discussed financial sustainability and governance, diversity and growing the women’s game.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “To hear players talk about the level of abuse they have faced was humbling.

"Their input [today] has strengthened my resolve to bring in new laws to ensure there is much greater accountability from the social media platforms for dealing with such problems."

“I was pleased that the Secretary of State wanted to engage with, and listen to, the thoughts of us as players and ex players," said Tyrone Mings of Aston Villa.

"Hopefully this adds context when he attempts to deliver change on behalf of us.”

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