The Premier League has published a five-year update on its No Room For Racism Action Plan, outlining continued efforts to tackle discrimination and support players who experience racial abuse, as well as improving diversity across the game.

The Action Plan was launched in 2021, setting out a series of commitments and targets designed to combat discrimination, enhance pathways into football for under-represented groups, support communities through education, and embed equality across club operations. The update shows continued progress being made in each of these areas.

Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said: “I am proud of the real progress that our No Room For Racism Action Plan has made across a range of important areas over the last five years.

“This includes investigating harmful online abuse, delivering impactful inclusive coaching programmes and providing valuable resources for schools that reach hundreds of thousands of children. We are wholly committed to increasing opportunities for people from under-represented groups and tackling racism wherever it happens in our game.

“Racism is completely unacceptable and when players continue to receive abuse on social media, it only highlights the importance of this work. We and our clubs will do all we can to bring offenders to justice and provide strong support for those subjected to racist abuse.”

No Room For Racism Action Plan five-year headlines:

The update can be read in full here, detailing the progress made over the last five years across all six pillars of the plan, please see overview below:

Action against racism – The Premier League has investigated more than 4,000 cases of online discriminatory abuse targeted at players and others within the game since 2021, with legal action brought against abusers across three continents.

Developing coaching pathways – The Premier League’s two main inclusive coaching programmes, the Professional Player to Coach Scheme and the Coach Inclusion and Diversity Scheme, support under-represented groups to develop careers in the professional game. The programmes have helped 100 participants to date, with 85 per cent now in full-time employment in football.

Enhancing executive pathways – 19.6 per cent of the League’s workforce is from ethnically diverse backgrounds (up from 12 per cent in 2021), surpassing the 2026 target of 18 per cent, as well as two Board members (40 per cent of the Board).

Improving player and match official pathways – Programmes funded by the League are designed to address the under-representation of British South Asians in the men’s game and ethnically diverse groups in the women’s. More than 3,000 children have engaged in the South Asian Action Plan, and representation by players from ethnically under-represented backgrounds has increased by 87 per cent (from 204 to 383) at Premier League-funded FA Girls’ Emerging Talent Centres.

Community support – The League works to raise awareness about the strength of diversity and the harm caused by discrimination within communities nationwide. Free No Room For Racism resources are shared with primary schools across England and Wales, benefitting more than 510,000 children and 16,000 teachers.

Embedding equality – The Premier League Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Standard is helping 27 clubs embed EDI across their operations, with 18 at Advanced level.

Another central focus of the League’s work is diversifying the pathways to positions within football for coaches, players, match officials and staff.

The five-year Action Plan update follows the League and all clubs, including Leeds United, jointly reaffirming that racist abuse has consequences, wherever it happens.

The Premier League has a team of experts dedicated to monitoring and investigating racist abuse targeted at players and others working within the game. They work to identify and locate abusers, who could face custodial sentences, football banning orders, criminal records, fines, community orders or police-mandated educational programmes.

Anyone who witnesses racist abuse is urged to report it. At a match, this can be done by finding the nearest steward or police officer, or you can report any incidents by texting LEEDS along with any relevant information around the incident, your name and ticket details to 60006 as soon as you can.

Online abuse can be reported directly to the site or platform where it was posted or via the League’s online reporting system.