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Q&A: Raj Randhawa, National Refereeing EDI Delivery Manager, the FA

04 Apr, 2025
Q&A: Raj Randhawa, National Refereeing EDI Delivery Manager, the FA

For many years, match officiating in British football has suffered from a severe lack of diversity, with no Black, Asian or Mixed Heritage officials taking charge of a Premier League match as referee between 2008 (when Uriah Rennie retired) and 2023 (when Sam Allison began refereeing in the top flight). Over the last two years, the Football Association's new Refereeing Strategy has focused on addressing this issue, with Raj Randhawa heading up the mission as the FA's National Refereeing EDI Delivery Manager.

Having worked in education at clubs like Newcastle United and MK Dons, contributed to campaigns at organisations like Kick It Out and operated in Head of Foundation and Trustee roles at Lincoln City and Notts County respectively, Raj brought a wealth of football industry experience into the role.

So far there has been significant progress, with a recently published year one review of the strategy finding that the FA's target of a net increase of 1000 Black and Asian referees by 2026 had already been surpassed, with 2,527 people from Black, Asian & Mixed Heritage backgrounds registered. But the job is far from done. In this career pathway Q&A, we speak to Raj about the work he's doing at the FA, what must be done to improve diversity and inclusivity in British football, and how his previous jobs in football helped land him his current role and make a positive impact.

When you became the FA's National Refereeing EDI Delivery Manager, how big was the task ahead?

"I started in the role in June 2023, coinciding with the launch of the new refereeing strategy. One of the key pillars within that strategy was equality, diversity and inclusion. There have been a lot of conversations, historically, about under-representation, from a women and girls perspective, but more from a Black, Asian and mixed heritage perspective. When I started, it was a big challenge because there was massive underrepresentation from the Black, Asian, and Mixed Heritage community.

Representation for women and girls was growing each year, there was a plan of action from county FAs to deliver female-only courses, and to deliver development groups to support female match officials to progress up the men's and women's pathways. But we didn't have that clear operational plan, so we had to establish that and understand what has worked well and what hasn't worked well in other sectors of the game.

I founded the FA Reflective and Representative campaign, which was very specific to the communities we were trying to reach, but also participant-driven. Finding out what the community's challenges and barriers were, and why they weren't going into officiating compared to other roles within football, that was the exercise that I undertook when I first started."

What were the key lessons you learned from other representation initiatives?

"When we look at representation, there are a lot of initiatives out there, but one thing that I've learned is that when we deliver something very specific, sometimes there's no outcomes, so if we are delivering education, courses and qualifications, if those people are coming out of those qualifications and not operating in that space or getting jobs, then it becomes a bit of a PR exercise or a tick-box exercise in some people's eyes. I wanted to move away from that.

The beauty of refereeing is that when you do a referee qualification, you come out as a qualified, registered referee. The destiny is in your own hands because you can start your journey as a paid grassroots football referee straight away. You can progress as a referee, your observations get done, accessing CPD development, being consistent, being accessible from an appointments perspective — the destiny is in your own hands.

We've communicated that message to the communities we're trying to reach. We've also deployed a bursary scheme. With a lot of bursary schemes for qualifications to address representation, you get free entry to the qualification, and that's something I wanted to be a bit different, because I didn't want to devalue the referee course. There had to be buy-in from communities, so we worked with county FAs, they put money into the pot, we put money into the pot, and the participants pay a £40 fee reduced from £140, but with that £40 they're getting a qualification, refereeing kit and equipment like flags, whistles, cones.

It's a tangible commitment, for them to join a course at a reasonable rate, and make sure that they give refereeing a go. We've been very flexible because we know there are financial barriers, so we can be flexible with some individuals."

What are you doing to speed up the pathway from the grassroots game to the professional game, specifically for Black, Asian, and Mixed Heritage referees in the UK?

"When I came in, alongside this strategy, the pathway to reach the top of the game was shifting [because] we wanted to progress referees faster. Historically, you would have to wait until the end of the season to see if you get promoted, whereas there are now different windows in the season for promotions. That helps the referees who are committed and inspired to reach the top of the game.

From a Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage space, it's that same principle, so the speed of the pathway is whatever you want no matter what your ethnicity or gender is. We've launched talent ID events across the country where we are looking at referees from Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage communities, that's the natural next step for the FA Reflective and Representative campaign, because last season we did a lot of recruitment, ensuring we have a larger pool from those communities, and season two we want to get into the mindset of those referees. 'Have you thought about progression? Have you thought about looking at refereeing as a career?'

By doing these talent ID events, we're trying to educate those communities about the pathway. As a national FA we also have a programme called FA Core, which is essentially the academy of really gifted, talented referees across the country across all levels. If there are individuals who attend the talent ID events that pass through the assessments we set, we want to take them as part of that FA Core academy programme, and supercharge their development."

Are you able to share some statistics regarding the improvements that have been made so far?

"When I started, the representation figures were very low. Only 2% of match officials were from Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage populations. Comparing that to national census data, those communities combined totaled about 16-18%, so we were well behind that. It was an emergency, for us as an FA it was important we delivered some targeted action fast, but it had to be informed by the communities and it had to work.

We set ourselves the task of increasing the representation of referees from these communities by 1000 within three years, and we passed it within a season, so from 2% we're at 10% now, which is a massive jump. We've got other sectors of the game and other industries in and outside of football looking to refereeing and saying 'How have you achieved that massive jump so quickly?' and it's nice to be on that side informing other stakeholders about what we're doing. I'm a great believer that if you see it, you believe you can be it. Now we've got role models, not just at the top level of the game but across all levels of refereeing.

If players, coaches, parents, guardians, or other visitors watching football see a member of their community on the pitch refereeing, that can inspire someone to sign up for a refereeing course or say to their parent 'I want to be a referee'. We've built a very good foundation, but we haven't put our feet up and said 'We've hit our targets now, we've met the strategy', we're being proactive now. We've got the talent ID events coming up, we launched a mentoring programme as well to support trainee referees from these communities, so we're doing ever more to keep on that trajectory."

How does your work align with the campaigning of organisations such as BAMREF, and what kind of relationship do you have with this pioneering group?

"I'm very appreciative of the football network; stakeholders like BAMREF, Kick It Out, and the professional club network, and also the unsung heroes like grassroots football clubs, grassroots leagues, and charities that sit outside football that have supported this campaign.

We need our network; without them, we wouldn't have got these numbers because if everything was on me to deliver this campaign, it would be an impossible job. BAMREF have been advocating for [greater representation in officiating] for a long time, wanting the football family to do more, and it's been a privilege to collaborate with them on this journey."

You previously worked as the National Grassroots Manager at Kick It Out. How did that role prepare you for your current position?

"I had a role and a responsibility to support grassroots stakeholders in terms of anti-discrimination messages, but also collaborate with clubs and leagues to establish reporting processes, ensuring that their benefactors (players, coaches, parents, guardians, volunteers) understood that if discrimination took place, it's everyone's responsibility to report that, not just the victim.

My job was to provide that education and be strategic to ensure that across the country, across any league and any club, if discrimination did take place within that football environment, it would quickly get reported. I fell into the world of refereeing through the Kick It Out role. A lady called Patsy Andrews, the mum of Akil Howson (an assistant match official in the Premier League), was always concerned about representation in refereeing, and she came to me with that problem.

We discussed what strategies we could deploy, and we looked at delivering some very targeted courses specific to those communities, through positive action under the Equality Act where we can address that imbalance. We did it in Leicester, Kick It Out funded that project and it was a success, so essentially we created a pilot project that could be finessed as a more strategic national project."

Your work has been recognised at the National Diversity Awards and endorsed by public figures like Prince William. How important is this recognition?

"I'm always grateful for recognition. A lot of hard work goes into it, a lot of long hours… with my family, it's hard to continue this work with the amount of hours I have to put in, but they know that I'm doing it for a special cause, and any recognition that I get it validates that the work is impactful.

Doing this work in our current political landscape, it's also something that's debated a lot. We're satisfied that this can be done through positive action under the Equality Act, but with the political landscape, it's resulted in a lot of abusive messages on social media. So when Prince William takes time out to come and visit the campaign, it gives it that royal seal of approval, it's absolutely massive, and it gives me that energy to kick on and go even further. Any recognition that I get, there's an army of people behind me that deserve that recognition as well. It's a shared accolade."

What are your main goals for the rest of 2025?

"We're moving quite fast in terms of success, and we've launched a couple of projects this season, mid-season, so it's about learning from those projects to make next season even more impactful. We're always learning because the projects that we've set up are very innovative, they're projects that many industries aren't comfortable to lead on, but at the Football Association we're a very forward-thinking organisation.

I've had backing from my senior leaders, and if you have backing from your senior leaders this work is gonna be successful. It's really important that we establish some of the projects that we're doing, continue to learn and continue to serve the referees from this community. That's what my role is about. People say it's a job, but for me it's a duty to advocate for the voices that haven't been heard."