‘You just want the right person for the right job’: ‘race neutral’ and ‘race conscious’ rationales for the implementation of positive action measures in sports coaching

In recent years, a small number of sports bodies in the UK have developed new interventions designed to address racialised inequities in sports coaching. This article draws on interviews with CEOs and Youth Academy Managers (n = 14) to examine their approaches to conceptualising and operationalising one such positive action measure in men’s professional football in England. With particular respect to; (i) the ways in which these organisational actors adhere to ‘race-neutral’ or ‘race-conscious’ understandings of the racial equality landscape of football coaching, (ii) how such understandings inform and mediate their conceptual opposition or support for positive action measures, and (iii) how such rationales underpin the non-implementation or implementation of such measures in practice. Finally, the authors utilise Critical Race Theory (CRT) to draw linkages between the underpinning philosophies, rationales and implementation of such measures, and broader neo-liberal ideologies, notions of interest convergence, and the normative power of Whiteness in such settings.