Gianni Infantino - "Today I am Disabled"

In an extraordinary press conference today, Gianni Infantino (FIFA president) had a few messages to share. His press conference started "Let’s look at that then let’s hopefully speak a little bit about football if you’re not too tired. Today, I have very strong feelings. Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker. I feel this, all of this, because of what I have been seeing and what I have been told because I don’t read otherwise I would be depressed I think."

The key message came later on when Gianni talked specifically about disability. “I was at an event a few days ago where we explained what we are doing at this World Cup for disabled people. 400 journalists are here. There is 1 billion disabled people in the world. Nobody cares. 15% of the world population are disabled but nobody cares. Of course we have to care. We have to do things to help them. For any minority or anyone that is in any way suffering or being abused."

This raises a few questions about the support disabled reporters receive and if we get the recognition we deserve. Many large organisations are being questioned over the representation in their companies but are diversity targets enough?

Well, here are some facts:

ITV have stated they are committed to improving the representation of disability on screen. 10% of the on-screen contributors will be perceived disabled by 2022.

BT says the company aims to have a 50% gender split by 2030, 25% of employees from an ethnic minority groups and 17% with a disability.

SKY's diversity target of 10% of it's workforce has been set.

At the BBC the Corporation’s 50:20:12 aim – for 50% women, 20% Black, Asian and minority ethnic, and 12% disabled representation in the BBC workforce.

If you need convincing that at the moment the industry need to do more, then look at this graph produced by the "Doubling Disability Report"

Taken from Doubling Disability Report

Currently, in the UK, 1 in 5 people have a disability which is the equivalent of 20%. So, if we are talking about true representation in the UK and improving opportunities then shouldn't the question be asked if the industry is doing enough? With more disabled people working in the media, we hope to see more diverse stories and better coverage of disability sport.

Diverse representation in the UK TV industry’s most senior ranks remains poor, according to the latest landmark Diamond diversity report, which showed representation of disabled people at the top is going backwards. The report, which is the fifth since the Diamond project was launched to monitor diversity across all broadcasters, indies and genres, showed signs of progress but mostly at lower and mid level. Representation of disabled people in senior roles over the past five years has fallen from 6.6% to 4.5%, miles behind the circa-17% national average and coming at a time when disability representation is firmly in the spotlight.

So, whilst the spotlight is on Qatar and football, could this be a chance for the industry to start looking around and asking if enough is being done?