Why is there a lack of British South Asians in football? — Academia and interview with Amar Purewal

At the last count there were only 22 British South Asian players aged 17 and over in England’s top 4 leagues. This is less than 1% of all players yet South Asians represent 9.3% of the UK population.

Asians have been blamed for their own exclusion and most people upon learning the stats resort to stereotypes to explain but I prefer to look at the facts and academic evidence.

You know the stereotypes and lazy explanations “Asians don’t play football” “They prefer cricket” “Asian parents force them down an education route” “Asians are too small”.

It is true that the subcontinent has a very poor record on the world football stage. However, British Asians have been in the UK since the 1950s so to look to the East is illogical.

I prefer to look at studies and data when making conclusions, as we all should in life, and Dr Dan Kilvington of Leeds Beckett University has done this.

A study by the University of Manchester found 60% of British Bangladeshi boys were playing football regularly, an even higher rate than white boys at 47%. So we do play football.

Persistent stereotypes, biased scouting networks, overt racism at grassroots and a lack of role models are the explanations Dr Kilvington found.

In his words “racialised stereotypes about South Asians are what is holding them back. Black players are seen as strong quick and gifted, South Asians are seen as technically good but not as strong and are hyper feminised in traditional representations in media and culture which don’t bode well for a physical sport such as football.”

What about biology? Dr Kilvington debunks this as well “There is no biological or genetic evidence in science to suggest that groups sharing the same skin colour have inherent characteristics.”

Referring to scouts, he called the recruitment system fundamentally flawed in which there are almost zero British Asian scouts and the scouting networks are dominated by an old boys club which only look at the same areas and ignore Asian players in Asian areas.

He went on to say there was a high level of verbal abuse at grassroots. As a result, many Asians may resort to playing in unaffiliated leagues such as 5 a side.

In the past when the UK was far less racially tolerant, many players would have dropped out and parents could not be expected to put their children into such a hostile environment.

Changes must therefore begin at grassroots

Despite this, there has been success — Anwar Uddin made hundreds of appearances for Dagenham and Redbridge after coming through the West Ham academy, Zesh Rehman played for Fulham in the Premier League.

Excitingly, it is getting better. Dilan Markanday currently plays for Blackburn, Brandon Khela made his debut for Birmingham, Arjan Raikhy the same at Leicester and there will only be more.

I interviewed one such player named Amar Purewal, a British Sikh Punjabi footballer, on my Youtube “A British South Asian Male Podcast”. Currently of Hebburn Town FC he started at Newcastle United academy, has appeared at Wembley, was top scorer at the 2016 CONIFA World Cup and has scored goals across non league. https://youtu.be/SAT63t1lUfw?si=wttyDYhMnfhWH820