Exploring racialised minority women’s lived experiences of negotiating sports boardroom positions in the UK
Published on 26 November, 2025.
Drawing on Critical Race Theory and Black Feminist Thought, this study critically explores the lived experiences of racialised minority women (n = 15) in sport boardrooms via semi-structured in-depth interviews. We explore their perceptions, experiences and interactions across a range of sport organisations in the United Kingdom (UK); National Governing Bodies (NGB), not-for-profit organisations, sport charities, and private sporting organisations. Findings illustrate how institutional arrangements designed to uphold Whiteness and patriarchy not only manifest within some sports boardrooms but also during preparatory stages and interview processes. Racialised minority women drew attention to exclusionary racialised and gendered practices including tokenism, microaggressions and a series of power dynamics which resulted in them feeling silenced, undervalued and isolated. Challenges to such exclusionary behaviours are explored through examples of micro-resistance practices. We argue that despite the representation of racialised minority women on sport boards, their presence may function as a performative gesture, masking deeper structural inequalities and keeping them on the peripheries of decision-making processes. To address inequitable boardroom cultures, stakeholders and policymakers must (1) revise the current Code for Sports Governance to include requirements for boards to monitor and make changes to address inequitable board cultures; (2) provide mandatory antidiscrimination education for Chairs, CEO’s and board members-; (3) establish appropriate independent channels for board members to seek support and report incidents of discrimination.