The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has abandoned use of the Rooney Rule in hiring coaches for national teams, saying its recruitment has "evolved." In 2018, the ECB committed to interviewing at least one applicant from an ethnic minority background for all coaching roles in its national men's, women's and disabled teams. That commitment came five years before a report from the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) concluded that discrimination was "widespread" in the sport in England and Wales.
Asked by BBC Sport about the hiring process for 16 roles connected to the England men's and women's teams since 2024, the ECB confirmed that not all appointments applied the Rooney Rule, and that it is no longer routinely used in coaching recruitment. The Rooney Rule was introduced in American football's NFL in 2003 and requires clubs to interview at least one ethnic minority candidate for each head coach or senior football operation vacancy. An ECB spokesperson said the board "regularly review[s] our recruitment practices" and that its approach "has evolved over the last eight years."
The ECB said recruitment processes are tailored to each role, with some involving open recruitment and others targeted searches for specialist skills. It added that in elite sport the pool of candidates can be relatively small, so it uses external recruitment specialists and internal expertise. The board said that rather than applying the Rooney Rule in every case, strengthening the coaching and leadership pipeline and increasing the number of ethnically diverse and female coaches is the most effective route to long-term change.
In April 2025, then director of women's cricket Clare Connor did not use an open process or the Rooney Rule when naming Charlotte Edwards head coach of the England women's team. Connor had previously said the Rooney Rule "should be absolutely applied in all circumstances where it is deemed feasible." The ICEC's 2023 report, *Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket*, concluded that racism, sexism, classism and elitism were rife in the game.
Source: BBC Sport · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing