The charity has increased its impact during the first year of its five-year Football United strategy with the help of new and existing partners, but record discrimination reports and a continued lack of representation in leadership positions show the scale of the challenge ahead.
Football United was launched in September 2025, with four clear goals: everyone is included, everyone is represented on the pitch, everyone can lead off the pitch, and everyone stands up todiscrimination.
In its Year One Impact Report, Kick It Out shows how more than 11,000 people have had access to its education programmes, including record participation in its rehabilitative Fan Education and Raise Your Game development programmes. It also created a groundbreaking partnership with Guinness 0.0 to reach football supporters in pubs where millions watch the game each season. More than 3,000 Greene King staff received Kick It Out education to help them recognise and respond to discrimination.
At a time of wider political division in society, a rise in anti-immigrant language contributed to a record 1,744 discrimination reports received by Kick It Out across professional football, grassroots and online spaces.
But the rise also showed that people were more encouraged to report, helped by new reporting relationships with Her Game Too, The Frank Soo Foundation and Football v Homophobia. More than 100 reports were received through these new channels, giving further confidence in reporting to underrepresented communities.
The number of these reporting relationships is set to rise in the 2026-27 season so that action, accountability and trust can increase.
The start of the 2025-26 season also saw professional clubs publish their workforce diversity data for the first time under FA Rule N, helping to highlight and address long-standing issues of representation in leadership roles, on and off the pitch, across the game.
With the help of more than 20 like-minded organisations, Kick It Out submitted proposals to the Independent Football Regulator, leading to increased board-level accountability on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at clubs, and representation targets for board and senior leadership positions.
Progress also included campaigning and policy work with an increased number of partners on online abuse, sexism and misogyny, faith-based discrimination and inclusion for underrepresented communities.
Samuel Okafor, Chief Executive of Kick It Out, said: “At a time of rising discrimination and where we need action to make the game more inclusive and representative of all communities, football must be more united to take on its challenges.
“Although our Impact Report shows a year of progress working alongside existing and new partners, we know that with further collaboration we can build on our policy, campaigning, education and reporting programmes to make the game more welcoming for everyone.
“This is only year one of the strategy, so we know there is so much more to do, but we have ambitious plans for the coming season where we will expand grassroots anti-discrimination education, increase Fan Education delivery with support from the Premier League and grow Raise Your Game. We will also build on our Guinness 0.0 partnership, develop new reporting relationships and continue influencing policy related to representation, online abuse and sexism and misogyny.
“We are determined to keep building a game where everyone is included, and everyone is united in tackling discrimination wherever it happens.”
Read our full report here.
