ECB drops Rooney Rule from England coaching appointments
ECB says coaching recruitment has moved beyond routine use of Rooney Rule
The England and Wales Cricket Board has stopped routinely using the Rooney Rule in recruitment for national-team coaching posts, saying its approach has evolved to fit the needs of individual appointments.
The policy, announced by the ECB in 2018, committed the governing body to interviewing at least one candidate from an ethnic-minority background for coaching roles across the England men’s, women’s and disability teams. The ECB confirmed to BBC Sport that the rule was not applied in every one of 16 appointments connected to the England men’s and women’s teams since 2024, and is no longer used routinely for coaching recruitment.
An ECB spokesperson said recruitment processes are now tailored to each role. Some positions are filled through open applications, while others involve targeted searches for specialist skills, experience and leadership; on some occasions, the board recruits a team rather than one individual.
“We remain committed to improving diversity and representation within cricket,” the spokesperson said. “Instead of applying [the Rooney Rule] in every case, our experience has shown that strengthening the coaching and leadership pipeline, and increasing the number of ethnically diverse and female coaches progressing through the system, is the most effective way of securing long-term change.”
The appointments cited in BBC Sport’s questions included both coaching and non-coaching roles. In the week of the report, Richard Dawson, James Foster and Eric Simons joined the England men’s Test coaching staff, while Michael Yardy was named elite national batting lead. The ECB said at least one ethnic-minority candidate took part in the process that led to Stephen Fleming becoming Test head coach in July.
The policy’s application had previously been described as standard practice by former director of women’s cricket Clare Connor. In April 2025, when appointing Charlotte Edwards as England women’s head coach without an open recruitment process or the Rooney Rule, Connor told BBC Sport that the rule should be applied “in all circumstances where it is deemed feasible” and said it was used for pathway and senior appointments.
Pipeline investment cited as alternative
The ECB said the candidate pool in elite sport can be small and that it uses external recruitment specialists and internal expertise to identify candidates from a range of backgrounds. It pointed to investment in coaching development as its preferred way to improve representation over time.
In 2025, the board funded more than 1,000 coaching bursaries, with 22% awarded to coaches from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Since 2021, people from ethnically diverse backgrounds accounted for 21% of participants on the advanced coaching course and 19% on the specialist course, the two highest levels in the ECB’s five-step coaching pathway.
The ECB introduced the Rooney Rule commitment in May 2018. The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket was established in March 2021, and its 2023 report, Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket, found racism, sexism, classism and elitism were widespread in the game. The Rooney Rule itself originated in the NFL in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least one ethnic-minority candidate for specified senior vacancies.