PORTSMOUTH FOOTBALL CLUB

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Safeguarding Policy

Portsmouth Football Club’s board of directors are fully committed to the safeguarding and welfare of children, young people and adults at risk.

We acknowledge and accept that we have a responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of any children, young people or adults at risk that take part in any activity at our club.

All staff, players and volunteers are expected to share our commitment and to support in creating a safe environment for everybody and a culture of safeguarding vigilance across our club.

Click here to read a copy of Portsmouth Football Club's Adult safeguarding policy.

Click here to read a copy of Portsmouth Football Club's Child safeguarding policy.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Our commitment

We believe that football belongs to and should be enjoyed by anyone who wants to participate in it. Therefore, we are committed to providing the best experience for employees, supporters and the wider public.  Being part of a wider community is very important to us and to that end, we are passionate about promoting equality, diversity and inclusion.

We believe that everyone is entitled to respect and dignity and should be able to enjoy football and related activities without a fair of unlawful discrimination, harassment and bullying.

We are committed to building an environment where we all are treated fairly. We promote respect and believe that making the most of our differences is the key to the success of our business. We ensure that we treat people the right way and that we provide access and opportunities for all members of the community to take part, and enjoy, our activities.

As a business, we aim to be as representative of as many sections of society as possible, and for each colleague to feel respected and able to give their best every day. In providing services and facilities, we are committed to the avoidance of unlawful discrimination not only of our colleagues, but also of our supporters and the wider public.

The club has developed policies and procedures fully supported by our Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Directors. The club has appointed a Head of People and EDI,  Senior Safeguarding Manager and a Disabled Supporter Liaison Officer who support these important areas of the club activity. An internal advisory group has been formed and meets regularly to consider equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the club and includes the club’s employees and representatives from the wider Pompey family.

The content of this statement applies equally to the treatment of our colleagues, customers, supporters, clients, partners and suppliers and is fully supported by the Senior Management Team and the Board of Directors.

Complaints and compliance

We regard all forms of discriminatory behaviour as unacceptable, and aim to ensure that everyone who is taking part in our activities feels confident and comfortable to raise any grievances or complaints relating to such behaviour. Appropriate disciplinary action will be taken against any employee, worker, volunteer, or third party contractor, spectator or fan who is found, after a full investigation, to have violated our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Procedure. You can find our full discrimination and unacceptable behaviour reporting procedure here.

We promote the reporting of all discriminatory activities by alerting the stewards during the match. You can also report incidents via our internal matchday text hotline (07500 778844), or via a Kick it Out app. Click here to download the app. Supporters can also click here to report incidents of sexism via Her Game Too site.  

If you would like to report an incident after a matchday, please email info@pompeyfc.co.uk and report it via a Kick it Out app or Her Game Too site

For more information on how to report incidents at professional and semi-professional matches see the FA-produced video below or here.

Positive action and Training

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, and our colleagues undertake regular training in this area. We also work closely with various organisations around the city, and together we raise awareness and educate the wider community on the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion.

We believe that there is no room for discrimination in football and support a range of anti-discriminatory initiatives every season, like Kick It Out, Rainbow Laces, Her Game Too, Unite for Access and more. In partnership with Pompey in the Community, we have also invited multiple underrepresented community groups to attend a match at Fratton Park. Since the pandemic, the tickets were allocated to a variety of minority, community, and economically / socially disadvantaged groups to allow them access to professional football, sometimes for the first time.

Legal right

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. Discrimination is defined as an unfavourable and unjust treatment of others on the basis of their particular characteristic, which are known as the ‘protected characteristics’. The Equality Act 2010 protects individuals from discrimination if they have a protected characteristic, are assumed to have it, are associated with someone who has the characteristic or with someone who is assumed to have it.

Under the Equality Act 2010, the protected characteristics are defined as age, sex (gender), gender reassignment, sexual orientation, disability, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race (includes ethnic or national origin, colour or nationality), and religion or belief.

Modern Slavery

We recognise that we have a responsibility to take a robust approach to modern slavery and human trafficking and our organisation is absolutely committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our corporate activities, and to ensuring that our supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking.

You can find our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement here.

Key Contacts:

Director with responsibility for safeguarding and inclusion: Andy Redman
Email: safeguarding@pompeyfc.co.uk

Head of People and EDI: Lina Small
Email: linasmall@pompeyfc.co.uk

Senior Safeguarding Manager and Disabled Supporter Liaison Officer : Emma Smith
Email: emmasmith@pompeyfc.co.uk or dslo@pompeyfc.co.uk

Pompey DSA: Pam Wilkins (Acting Chair) 
Email: info@dsapompey.co.uk

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking - Our Approach

This statement sets out Portsmouth Football Club’s actions to understand all potential modern slavery risks related to our business and to put in place steps that are aimed at ensuring that there is no slavery or human trafficking in own business and our supply chains.

We recognise that we have a responsibility to take a robust approach to slavery and human trafficking and our organisation is absolutely committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our corporate activities, and to ensuring that our supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking.

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Procedure and Other Procedures

We have implemented a Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Procedure to ensure that our staff understand our opposition to such activities and are able to help us avoid, identify and eradicate them as appropriate. This procedure applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including employees and casual workers at all levels, directors, agency workers, volunteers, interns, contractors and external consultants.

We also operate other procedures alongside our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Procedure, which help to support our continuous objectives in ensuring lawful practice and ethics in our business operations. These include, without limitation, our Whistleblowing Procedure, Health and Safety Policies and procedures, Anti-bribery and Anti-corruption procedure, Equal opportunities procedure, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion procedure, Anti-harassment and anti-bullying procedure and our Safeguarding procedures.

Training

Modern slavery forms part of the essential training and is delivered to our staff as part of their inductions process, followed by a refresher training every 2 years (or as required). Training and/or guidance on the applicable policies is provided where relevant. Breaches of our applicable policies may result in disciplinary action for employees or other individuals working on our behalf.

We continue to look to develop further training initiatives to ensure staff are kept aware of requirements in this field.

Supply Chains and due diligence

To support our initiatives to mitigate the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and supply chain, we will conduct a review of all suppliers across the club. This will be completed by 31 December 2024

The process will commence with each department carrying out a risk assessment of our most significant suppliers to assess the likelihood of modern slavery within our supply chain and we will thereafter review the results. If a risk is highlighted with this assessment, we will take the necessary actions.

As part of our contracting processes and when tendering for relevant goods or services, we will include specific prohibitions against the use of forced, compulsory or trafficked labour, or anyone held in slavery or servitude, whether adults or children, and we expect that our suppliers will hold their own suppliers to the same high standards.

Where appropriate, we will include modern slavery provisions with our commercial contracts to ensure suppliers understand our commitment to our policy and that they take reasonable steps to eliminate the possibility of modern slavery and human trafficking taking place in our supply chain.

Assessment of Effectiveness

You are encouraged to raise concerns about any issue or suspicion of modern slavery in any parts of our business or supply chain to the business as soon as possible. Our colleagues should report any concerns to their line manager/ HR department or the Chief Executive Officer, or report it in accordance with either our Grievance Procedure or our Whistleblowing Procedure.

We encourage openness and will support anyone who raises genuine concerns in good faith.

In order to assess the effectiveness of the measures we take, policies and procedures in relation to modern slavery and human trafficking are reviewed regularly but no less than every 3 years.