LONDON: Dame Heather Rabatts has said she thinks Dan Ashworth’s position as the Football Association’s technical director is now “untenable” after last week’s Parliamentary hearing into the Mark Sampson affair.

As Rabbatts, who had been the first woman to serve on the FA board until stepping down earlier this year, told BBC Radio: “I think his [Ashworth’s] position is untenable. He’s been there since 2012 and these issues have been raised – a lack of diversity, a lack of black coaches, the issue of Mark Sampson and Eni, these have all happened.

“Something has to change. One of the reasons I left [the FA] slightly early in terms of being the first person of colour, the first woman on that board, is that this issue of the national football centre at St George’s Park, which should be leading best practice, is a monoculture. That’s not acceptable.

“In a way the story starts, not from the failures of internal investigations but where you have a culture where comments can be made, and clearly were made, and there isn’t an instant reaction that those comments were wrong and inappropriate.”

Sampson, former manager of the England women’s national team, was dismissed last month for what the governing body described as “inappropriate and unacceptable” behaviour in a previous job managing Bristol Academy.
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Last Wednesday the FA apologised to former England player Eni Aluko and her Chelsea team-mate Drew Spence for his racially discriminatory remarks.
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