How a PR campaign helped tackle discrimination in football

Kick It Out is football's equality and inclusion campaign, funded by the game's governing bodies, including the Professional Footballers' Association, the Premier League and the Football Association. It was set up in 1993 to tackle racism in football. Last October, about 1,000 events took place nationwide at football grounds, schools, universities, youth centres, community centres and places of worship to highlight diversity and equality in football and sport in general. The weeks of action were known as One Game, One Community.

Objectives

Key aims of the campaign were to generate a high-profile period of activity for equality and against discrimination and to raise awareness of issues affecting football such as homophobia, the lack of black managers, the lack of British Asian players and the lack of women at boardroom level. The campaign also wanted to build One Game, One Community as a stand-alone brand and engage with and energise football and non-football audiences.

Strategy

Branded T-shirts were sent to players including Chelsea and England captain John Terry, to be worn during pre-match warm-ups. Managers, including Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez, were also sent branded badges to wear during post-match interviews and a branded photo shoot with the England team was set up before the Belarus fixture at Wembley.

A magazine with a print run of 200,000 was created, featuring exclusive interviews with Premier League players who acted as ambassadors for the campaign, and media opportunities were secured for the ambassadors. These included current and ex-professional footballers, actors including The Wire's Idris Elba and musicians such as former So Solid Crew member Ashley Walters.

The PR team linked up with CSR partner Ford to include One Game, One Community mentions in all Sky Sports ad breaks. The team also arranged stadium announcements and articles about the weeks of action in match-day magazines.

A grassroots Dream Manager competition was set up, giving amateur sides a chance to be trained by an ex-professional for one session. Former players were secured from Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United to fulfil the role of dream manager. A series of Question Time-style events were held at public forums covering topics including the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and the issue of homophobia in football.

Results

The campaign secured 639 articles in print. It also appeared in Society Guardian, New Start and The Times Educational Supplement. Commentary teams at the BBC, Sky Sports and ESPN were all persuaded to reference the campaign during live matches.

The website kickitout.org saw a 50 per cent increase in unique users. Community group involvement increased by 20 per cent compared with the 2008/09 season. Events at more than 30 community groups were funded in October.