News in 2006

24th March 2006

Football talent is being ignored

Asian footballers are being overlooked by the professional game because they play in the streets rather than organised youth teams, a study claims.

Experts looked into the lack of Asian players at Burnley Football Club and found it was due to them "falling off the radar" of scouts.

The research was conducted by Dr Jonathan Magee and Cliff Olsson from the International Football Institute a partnership between the University of Central Lancashire and the National Football Museum thanks to a grant from the European Development Fund.

Dr Magee said: "What we found is that Asian youngsters are interested in playing football but not in the traditional way of how football is organised.

"Not like white people would be used to training maybe twice a week for a specific club and then playing a game on a Saturday or Sunday.

"They tend to book a leisure centre or an astroturf facility.

And Ali Akibar, 17, from Burnley, is the only Asian player to come through the ranks at Turf Moor in the last 10 years.

But according to Dr Magee the situation will not get any better unless there are more Asian role models on the football field. He added: "It's too easy to say that Asians would rather play cricket.

"Yes that's true to an extent but there's many who would equally rather play football.

"Without a role model to look up to who has made it through the professional ranks to play for England and earn millions then that would be very difficult to change."

As a result of the findings Burnley plan to appoint an ethnic diversity officer as well as two Asian scouts and may even launch a satellite Centre of Excellence, similar to their facility in Gawthorpe, in Asian communities in the town.

Source: Asian Image