British Asian man takes Liverpool to court for 'racial discrimination'

A British Asian man, Farooq Asad, is said to have sued Liverpool over alleged discrimination based on race.

Farouq is a 25-year-old who specialises in and has qualifications in stadium and event management. He also has hands-on experience, having previously worked for Tottenham and in Qatar during the 2022 World Cup.

According to the Guardian, Farooq applied for an administrative role at Liverpool relevant to his qualifications.

The job listing also requires the candidates to “have experience of working in an elite sporting environment." And Farooq, given his work experience, believed himself an adequate candidate.

However, he did not land the job, with the club citing “the level of experience you demonstrated in your application was not as strong as the candidates that were taken forward for interview" as the reason.

Through LinkedIn, the plaintiff was said to have found that Liverpool indeed made a hire for the role, but unlike their specifications and the reason for declining Farooq’s application, the individual lacked the relevant experience.

Farooq subsequently escalated to Yunus Lunat, a Muslim lawyer who was the ethnic minority representative on Liverpool’s official supporters committee.

Lunat approached Liverpool on the matter but was informed by the club that Farooq’s salary demands were why his application was denied.

“As a South Asian, I’ve worked really hard to get my foot into the door, and nobody seems to be giving me any opportunities.”

“I’m more than capable of doing the [Liverpool] job. I’m not going to drop this because they’re claiming that they are all about diversity; they’re claiming that they want South Asians to come into the football industry, but then they do these bad recruitment practices and don’t give us these opportunities.

“They’re talking about how they want to break down barriers, but this is not breaking down barriers.”

The individual picked over Farooq for the role only had the job on a temporary basis and has since been replaced, but was given another permanent role at the club.

Farooq had the following to say about that: “If you’ve got an issue with diversity, how can you give somebody a position on a temporary basis when they clearly don’t meet the job description and then give them a full-time role afterwards?”

“They could have come back to me and said: ‘Look, Asad, we’ve got an issue right now where this full-time employee that we’ve got coming into the club, It’s going to take a little while for him to come, This is the salary, Are you willing to come for an interview?’”

Liverpool are said to have refused to comment on the case while it is active and plan to get the charges dismissed at an employment tribunal hearing in March.