Sky Sports and Kick It Out are delighted to announce the extension of their partnership for another year, reinforcing both organisations' commitment to promoting inclusion and tackling discrimination in football.
Now entering its fifth year, the partnership will pledge an additional £1m investment over the next year in a mix of cash and value-in-kind support to the drive to tackle discrimination and create career opportunities in football.
In 2024, Sky Sports supported the 'Kick Sexism Out' campaign to address misogyny in football as pundits including Kelly Cates, Jobi McAnuff and Sue Smith showed how the abuse can be challenged and reported.
The partnership also continued its joint scholarship programme with the University of Liverpool Management School to provide students from underrepresented backgrounds with the opportunity to earn an MBA in Football Industries.
The latest graduates have gone on to thrive in the football sector after completing their MBAs, including Christina Taylor, who recently secured a £150,000 investment in her business aimed at improving representation in media and sports.
Taylor said: "The MBA has been crucial to the success of what I've started because of the knowledge I gained within the football industry. My dissertation was a business plan to scale the business, and I used that plan to enter a competition with Havas Media Network who then awarded me £150,000 equity free in investment.
"It meant the world to win it. My main goal is how can we create a business and have a social impact to change the world in whatever small way you can."
In a further sign of diversifying the football industry, Sky also supported Kick It Out's Raise Your Game initiative, which provides career opportunities for underrepresented communities.
Sky Sports presenter Bela Shah and reporter Dharmesh Sheth spoke about their experiences during the media-focused event at UCFB's Wembley campus, while Chris Reidy and Danyal Khan delivered a workshop to over 100 enthusiastic and engaged delegates.
Funded through Sky's £30m commitment to tackle structural inequality, Sky's multimillion pound investment has supported several other initiatives during the last five years.
These include 'The Edit', a digital and media literacy skills programme for young people across the UK & Ireland in collaboration with Adobe which reached over 40,000 students from 646 schools; Kick It Out's digital learning platform, The Academy, which has delivered educational content on equality, diversity and inclusivity to over 3,600 people; and continued support in its programmes through Kick It Out visuals and branding.
Jonathan Licht, managing director of Sky Sports, said: "Sky is the unrivalled home of domestic football, working hand-in-hand with our partners in both the men's and women's game. With this comes the commitment and responsibility to support and contribute to initiatives that make the game more inclusive and tackle discrimination in the sport.
"By investing additional funding this year and continuing our partnership with Kick It Out, we aim to create more opportunities for underrepresented communities and drive meaningful change in football."
Speaking on Sky Sports News, Kick It Out CEO Samuel Okafor explained how the £1m investment would be used to continue to tackle discrimination at all levels of the game, as well as creating opportunities for people from under-privileged backgrounds to succeed.
"It's a really exciting partnership which is going into its fifth year, which is absolutely superb. And I think it reinforces both organisations' desire and commitment to tackle discrimination in football and make it more inclusive and more welcoming.
"We started off the year, started off the season, with the launch of our sexism and misogyny campaign, which a number of presenters at Sky supported, so a huge thank you for that. We'll continue to roll out our MBA programme in partnership with the University of Liverpool, and it's great to see that those who participated in the programme are now getting jobs in the industry as well.
"There's also been great support from Sky on the Raise Your Game programme, which is helping underrepresented communities to be able to access work within the industry as well.
"And in addition to that, we have our online platform, which provides superb educational content for players, for grassroots clubs, for match officials. And we can see that more and more people are accessing that.
"So you can see how the fund is really being used to drive against discrimination, but also to make the game more inclusive as well. We're hugely grateful for the partnership."
