LFC accused of Racism

British Asian man sues Liverpool FC over ‘racial discrimination’

         

Asad Farooq, 25, claims club rejected his job application in favour of someone less experienced         

A British Asian man is suing Liverpool Football Club, claiming it racially discriminated against him by rejecting his application for a job in favour of someone less experienced.

Asad Farooq, 25, has a degree in stadium and event management, and has worked for Tottenham Hotspur and at the Qatar World Cup, but was not invited for an interview when he applied to Liverpool in November last year for a job in administration.

 The advertised role said the candidate would ideally “have experience of working in an elite sporting environment”, leading Farooq to believe he had a good chance of landing it.

However, he was subsequently told, in a message seen by the Guardian, that “the level of experience you demonstrated in your application was not as strong as the candidates that were taken forward for interview”.

After spotting that the person appointed to the role – according to their LinkedIn profile – had no football experience and just one full-time job since graduation, Farooq instructed Yunus Lunat, a lawyer who was the first Muslim to sit on the Football Association (FA) council and was ethnic minority representative on Liverpool’s official supporters’ committee.

Liverpool supporter Farooq, who lives in Birmingham, said: “As a south Asian, I’ve worked really hard to get my foot into the door and nobody seems to be giving me any opportunities.

“I’m more than capable of doing the [Liverpool] job. I’m not going to drop this, because they’re claiming that they are all about diversity, they’re claiming that they want south Asians to come into the football industry, but then they do these bad recruitment practices and don’t give us these opportunities.

“They’re talking about how they want to break down barriers but this is not breaking down barriers.”

Farooq said he has asked the club for its diversity statistics but it has refused to provide them.     


 The only publicly available figures are in the FA’s 2022-23 Football Leadership Diversity Code report, which sets a target of 15% of new hires in senior leadership and in team operations roles to be black, Asian or mixed-heritage. Liverpool’s results for new hires were 0% and 9% respectively, compared with 9.1% and 11.2% across all 54 signed up clubs. In interview shortlists at Liverpool, 82% had at least one male black, Asian or mixed-heritage candidate and 68% had at least one female black, Asian or mixed-heritage candidate.

  Liverpool’s website says it is “striving to lead the way when it comes to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)” and the club holds the Premier League’s highest honour for EDI.

The club declined to comment on Farooq’s case while proceedings are live or to provide diversity data to the Guardian. It is anticipated that it will try to get the case thrown out at an employment tribunal hearing in March.

Lunat said when he approached Liverpool on Farooq’s behalf the club gave a different reason for rejecting his application, claiming it was because of his salary demands.

Farooq said it later emerged that the person picked for the role that he unsuccessfully applied for was only temporary and had been replaced by someone else, although they were given another job within the club.       

Farooq, who also has more than 500 hours of volunteering with the FA as a team liaison officer, said: “If you’ve got an issue with diversity, how can you give somebody a position on a temporary basis when they clearly don’t meet the job description and then give them a full-time role afterwards?

“They could have come back to me and said: ‘Look, Asad, we’ve got an issue right now where this full-time employee that we’ve got coming into the club, it’s going to take a little while for him to come, this is the salary, are you willing to come for an interview?’”

Lunat, a partner at Ison Harrison in Leeds, said: “It is rare, if ever, that a real-life case will arise which can be used to emphasise that despite regular talk shops and initiatives, nothing will change unless there is transparency and a change in attitudes.

“Remember, we’ve always been told that there are no Asian footballers because Asian parents have focused on education. It seems that despite being educated and qualified, Asians do not get opportunities in sports administration.

“It is a sad indictment of the football workforce that there has been little if any improvement in its race demographics in the last 20 years and I am still churning out the same comments and statements.”

   https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/28/british-asian-man-sues-liverpool-fc-over-racial-discrimination?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other     

Surely the club has the right to give the job and therefore their money to the candidate they want too? I highly doubt the reason for not inviting him for an interview was his ethnicity.

He applied for a job requiring working in an elite sporting environment? Surely working for spurs doesn't count.

He applied for a job requiring working in an elite sporting environment? Surely working for spurs doesn't count.

Ahh yes the devil was in the detail

I mean the club already has a number of Muslim players, at one point even Zaf Iqbal was the club's physio. I don't see what his point is.

I mean the club already has a number of Muslim players, at one point even Zaf Iqbal was the club's physio. I don't see what his point is.

Sore grapes.

Nothing that will effect the team or the FA can do against us. It is a legal aspect/argument.

I mean the club already has a number of Muslim players, at one point even Zaf Iqbal was the club's physio. I don't see what his point is.

The point is he didn’t get the job he wanted. 🤷‍♂️  therefore has to find reason for it to be someone else’s fault.
Usually if you’re no successful with a job application there’s good reason.
Could it be his personality? Or perhaps he was overqualified and therefore requested a higher salary than was offered for the role 🤷‍♂️
There’s a multitude of reasons it could be other than racism

Calls himself a Liverpool fan. Just sounds like a 🔔 🔚 to me. That's probably why he didn't get it.

Another jumping on the racism train , didn’t get the job cry like a bi*ch , and call racism its fckin pathetic , how toxic this country has become , at the end of the day the club should have the right to pick who the hell it wants for the job , just because you got a degree don’t mean your great for the job , half the cu*ts I see on site these days in management are fckin useless .

Just a spoilt brat who has never been told no and can't accept he didn't get the job, how dare someone else get it.

Could it be a little jealousy here

Playing the Race card, daft tw*t.

Didn’t get the job!. Pulls the race card, give your head a wobble mate.

Ridiculous assumption, to complain that the club is being racist. Meaning anyone can use the racist card, if they are turned down for a position. The whole world has gone mad, in my view.

British Asian man sues Liverpool FC over ‘racial discrimination’

         
The advertised role said the candidate would ideally “have experience of working in an elite sporting environment”, leading Farooq to believe he had a good chance of landing it.

However, he was subsequently told, in a message seen by the Guardian, that “the level of experience you demonstrated in your application was not as strong as the candidates that were taken forward for interview”.

After spotting that the person appointed to the role – according to their LinkedIn profile – had no football experience and just one full-time job since graduation, Farooq instructed Yunus Lunat, a lawyer who was the first Muslim to sit on the Football Association (FA) council and was ethnic minority representative on Liverpool’s official supporters’ committee.

Well that’s the candidate’s basis and argument. It’s all subject to interpretation. That’s why lawyers exist.

And we all know best when we are at the unfavourable end of some people’s interpretation. Yes that’s a horrible feeling.

At least he gets to go to court to argue his case. Some situations have zero chance of appeal despite awful official’s wrongful interpretation of the laws. Like a handball or a VAR goal. Check complete.

Well that’s the candidate’s basis and argument. It’s all subject to interpretation. That’s why lawyers exist.

And we all know best when we are at the unfavourable end of some people’s interpretation. Yes that’s a horrible feeling.

At least he gets to go to court to argue his case. Some situations have zero chance of appeal despite awful official’s wrongful interpretation of the laws. Like a handball or a VAR goal. Check complete.

He obviously after a bit of compensation from the club. If they have any sense the case will be thrown out. "Sense" being the key word.

If they hired someone with zero football experience then he has the right to feel aggrieved. However, I wonder if they interviewed other candidates who had football experience and turned them down. Who did they hire? Were they friends or family with someone at the club already (that happens a lot too)?

There are numerous cases where candidates for a position they are qualified for are overlooked for ethnicity reasons. None of us have a clue as to what did, or didn't influence the decision. Try to keep an open mind and hopefully the truth will come out.

Where I work we've had lots of candidates who've ticked the right boxes in terms of qualifications who've ended up frankly not being made of the right stuff. There are also those whose experience is its own qualification which often far outweighs other factors. Those who apply for more junior positions we tend to place a greater weight on other criteria including how they've performed in the interview. The defining feature of those who do well is usually not how well qualified they are on paper but how professional they are in their attitude towards work and their determination to do well for themselves and therefore the business.

Devil is in the detail with these things, no way of knowing from the brief journalistic summary of one side's point of view whether there's any merit in his case or not.

Anyway, that's what the law is there for. If he can show he was actually discriminated against he'll probably win, and so he should. If he can't, he shouldn't, and almost certainly won't.

All I know is that card is getting played out in society far too often , I’m not suggesting it hasn’t happened in the past it may have but to suggest this club has racial undertones now I find frankly absurd considering the players and staff working at lfc from all kinds of backgrounds and origins,

All I know is that card is getting played out in society far too often

Yea Elon Musk plays this card a lot

Who the F**k cares, the fella went for a job, didn’t get it, get over it ffs, he wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to be turned down, Race has F**k all to do with it unless you have alternative agenda, i dunno but I’m guessing there were White candidates who were also turned down, but they didn’t find any rooftops to shout out racial discrimination from did they??

F**k Off….Nothing to see here !!


YNWA

Amazing how people with zero knowledge of the process can be so tribal about it.

None of us have a clue what happened. These things going to court are a good thing - if Liverpool discriminated that’s wrong, if we didn’t and have a proper process that will be shown too.

Not everything is an attack - 25 year old lad wants a job and might feel he’s been rejected numerous times based on nothing but his ethnicity. Could just be the straw that broke the camels back and he’s decided to take it forward.

As someone else said, be open minded.

Amazing how people with zero knowledge of the process can be so tribal about it.

None of us have a clue what happened. These things going to court are a good thing - if Liverpool discriminated that’s wrong, if we didn’t and have a proper process that will be shown too.

Not everything is an attack - 25 year old lad wants a job and might feel he’s been rejected numerous times based on nothing but his ethnicity. Could just be the straw that broke the camels back and he’s decided to take it forward.

As someone else said, be open minded.

So went straight to the press!!

Hope he has a good "compo face"

So went straight to the press!!

Hope he has a good "compo face"

Don’t see the problem, if you felt a massive company wronged you then you’d be on Twitter or trying to find ways to get it in your favour.

I’m sure Liverpool are gonna have far far better lawyers than he has so if everything’s above board then he’s gonna very publically ruin his future chances of a job elsewhere.

Just don’t see the big deal really

Don’t see the problem, if you felt a massive company wronged you then you’d be on Twitter or trying to find ways to get it in your favour.

I’m sure Liverpool are gonna have far far better lawyers than he has so if everything’s above board then he’s gonna very publically ruin his future chances of a job elsewhere.

Just don’t see the big deal really

In my job been on the other side of it when a person hasn't been wronged and throw the accusation out cos they can't get their own way.

Liverpool lawyers already have a confidentiality clause in place hence why the club are saying F**k all.

Don’t see the problem, if you felt a massive company wronged you then you’d be on Twitter or trying to find ways to get it in your favour.

I’m sure Liverpool are gonna have far far better lawyers than he has so if everything’s above board then he’s gonna very publically ruin his future chances of a job elsewhere.

Just don’t see the big deal really

This is your typical ‘Blame Culture’ bollocks, where someone feels they’ve been wronged so someone somewhere else has to be blamed or has to fork out thousands because some cnuts feelings got hurt, unless it has cost life or limb, grow some thicker skin, take it on the chin, suck it up buttercup or simply just accept that life is tough, you don’t always get your own f***in way,

What the F**k has happened to the backbone of Britain, once we were a proud nation of hard noses, now we’re a soft centred lily livered politically Correct society of yes men( and women ) dictated to by a corrupt governance !!



YNWA

What the F**k has happened to the backbone of Britain, once we were a proud nation of hard noses, now we’re a soft centred lily livered politically Correct society of yes men( and women ) dictated to by a corrupt governance !!



YNWA

American lawyer up and make a compo claim culture unfortunately.

Dunno about the job he's gone for but when I got through to the interview stage of being a tour guide at Anfield, the bird said most of the staff were on zero hour contracts so it could be a blessing for him he didn't get the job if that is the case here.