Just 56% of black people meet guidelines of 150 minutes of physical activity a week (Picture: Getty)

Sport England has warned of a stark ethnicity gap in sport, which sees black and minority ethnic people falling way short of the official physical activity targets.

The national body’s Sport for All report reveals that ethnic minorities are far less likely to be physically active, and new stats highlight the scale of the challenge.

62% of adults in England currently meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of 150 minutes of physical activity a week. However, just 56% of black people and 55.1% of Asian people (excluding Chinese) reach this figure.

Board member Chris Grant, says the problem is rooted in our inherent discomfort talking about race and sport.




‘We need to get beyond this if we are genuinely going to do something about the ethnicity gap,’ he explains. ‘One of the key ingredients to achieve necessary change at all levels of sport is how we use data.

‘If we don’t invest both vigour and rigour in building a detailed picture of the situation as it currently exists, then we stand little chance of coming up with effective solutions that will improve peoples’ lives.

‘I want to invite and challenge the whole of sport to come with us on this journey, and in doing so to be clear-sighted and honest about the ways in which we’re currently excluding and letting down whole swathes of our population.’

In the release, Sport England talk about the ‘deep-rooted inequalities’ that have caused and perpetuate this ethnicity gap, and the need to recognise the systemic failings in sport that have led to this.

Director of Sport, Phil Smith, says the whole sports sector will need to work together to solve this problem.

‘We all have a huge opportunity to create innovative new ways of designing sport and physical activity so that many more people can see it as something for them, for people who look like them, for people from their communities,’ says Phil.

‘We absolutely recognise that there are complex, interconnected mixture of issues at play here and it would be wrong and reductive to think that there is one simple answer.

‘And we also recognise there are many others who hold the expertise needed to create real change and we are committed to learning from those experts.’

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