Liverpool FC 'racial bias' job claim thrown out

Liverpool said there was "no evidence whatsoever" of racial discrimination

A man who claimed bosses at Liverpool football club had rejected his job application due to racial discrimination has had his case thrown out by a tribunal.

Asad Farooq had applied for the "high-pressure" role of first team operations officer, which involved supporting the day-to-day activities of the team in November 2022.

Mr Farooq, from Birmingham, was not shortlisted for interview and later claimed "unconscious bias" against his British Asian heritage meant he was not taken seriously.

However, Liverpool successfully argued that his application was dismissed simply due to his lack of experience – and told the tribunal there was "no evidence whatsoever that race played any part at all".

The club said it had received 487 applications for the position, 444 of which were considered before the list was reduced further into a manageable shortlist.

The tribunal had heard the hiring manager, head of first team operations Louise Dobson, initially rejected Mr Farooq's application due to his salary demands but the process was re-opened again when the first candidate the club selected turned the job down.

'Evidence is clear'

On the second "sift" through the applications Mr Farooq, who was working in a temporary job managing a catering contract at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, was once again turned down due to his lack of experience in operational first team roles.

Delivering a majority ruling at Liverpool Civil and Family Court, employment judge Nicola Benson said: "The majority view is that the evidence is clear.

"At the stage she carried out the shortlisting again, with the intent to reduce the number of 444 applications to a more manageable number, there are no facts or inferences from which we could conclude it had anything to do with the claimant's race."

One of the two magistrates sitting with Judge Benson however, disagreed and believed Ms Dobson should have taken Mr Farooq forward to the interview stage.

Judge Benson also said the panel had drawn an inference that Liverpool had declined to provide statistics about the diversity of its roughly 800 strong workforce during the tribunal process because the figures were "bad".

However, that decision was taken after the hiring process and had nothing to do with Ms Dobson, she said.

Employment judge Nicola Benson said the tribunal was unable to draw any inference of racial bias

During the tribunal, Ms Dobson said: "We wanted somebody who was dealing with players, coaching staff, on a day-to-day level.

"Someone who was dealing with catering was not what we were looking for."

Anisa Niaz-Dickinson, representing Liverpool, argued that decision was "reasonable" and "untainted" by racial bias.

In her closing submissions she pointed out that three other non-white candidates, including two of mixed Asian and white heritage, had been shortlisted and interviewed for the role.

During the three-day hearing Mr Farooq said he first suspected he had been discriminated against when he saw a post on the Linked In website in May 2023.

The post, from a temporary staffer called Anna Garnett with limited experience, wrongly suggested she had been appointed to the first team operations officer role.

In fact, the tribunal heard, she had simply been drafted in to cover some basic administrative tasks because the successful candidate, Zac Foley, could not start immediately.

The tribunal heard Mr Foley joined from Blackburn Rovers where he had been academy football operations manager and pre-academy manager since 2019.

Ms Dobson said she stood by her hiring decision and Mr Foley is still in the role.

Liverpool declined to comment after the hearing.