Club will support an important cause on Saturday
AFC Wimbledon will be supporting the valuable work of the Kick It Out organisation at this Saturday’s game against York City.
The club’s dedicated “Season of Action” fixture will support Kick It Out’s aim to tackle racism and discrimination in football.
As part of this, Wimbledon players and match officials will be sporting Kick It Out T-shirts during the warm-up and club mascot Haydon the Womble will wear one over his usual attire.
The picture above shows (left to right) Goalkeeper Coach Ashley Bayes, left-back Callum Kennedy, manager Neal Ardley and physio Stuart Douglas supporting the fight to eradicate racism and discrimination.
The AFC Wimbledon Foundation has worked hard to raise awareness about the charity’s aims, in particular through their “Mind Your Language” schools art competition. This is a project run with local schools, which will see the best flags and banners displayed at Saturday’s match.
The aim of the competition was for pupils to discuss discrimination in football or school, and then design and make a flag to combat this. The competition was run in conjunction with Kick It Out, the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF), and Merton Council.
The FSF’s goal of increasing awareness of diversity within young followers of football, Merton Council’s aim of eradicating the use of derogatory language in schools, and AFC Wimbledon’s commitment to equality and diversity, go hand-in-hand with Kick It Out’s aims as football’s equality and inclusion organisation.
AFC Wimbledon Foundation Operations Manager Paul Foley said: “In today’s multicultural society there is still a lot of discriminatory behaviour and this is not just a problem in football. We believe it’s important for young people to be taught at an early age to respect one another and different cultures. Saturday’s event aims to raise awareness of the important values raised by Kick It Out.”
Children from Cleves School, winners of AFC Wimbledon Foundation’s Football League Kids Cup competition, will hold up a Kick It Out flag on the edge of the pitch before the game. The club will also be raising awareness by handing out free pens, stickers, wrist bands and badges to all children attending the match.
The Kick It Out organisation was launched by the Commission for Racial Equality and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) in 1993 under the name “Lets Kick Racism Out Of Football”.
In 1997, the organisation evolved to become known as “Kick It Out”, funded by The Football Association (FA), Premier League, Football Foundation and The PFA, and today it tackles discrimination of all kinds in the sport.