D.C. United 's hiring of Wayne Rooney as their manager has resulted in the club being slapped with a fine worth more than £21,000.
The former Manchester United and England captain - who was recently been spotted back in the UK after slumping to a rock-bottom finish with D.C. in the Eastern Conference - headed back to North America in July, having spent two campaigns with the club as a player in 2018 and 2019.
But in the 37-year-old's return to Washington, which came about after he made the shock decision to quit as boss of Derby County, the club failed to meet Major League Soccer' s Diversity Hiring Policy. The policy, which was last amended in December 2021, requires all teams searching for a new head coach to have a 'finalist pool [which] includes two or more candidates from underrepresented groups, whereby at least one candidate must be either Black or African American'.
In D.C.'s case, they met with two qualifying candidates but only one of them could be considered within the 'finalist pool'. Rooney's side have now been hit with a $25,000 fine from MLS, the equivalent of £21.6k.
"While D.C. United relied on representations made by one of the candidate's agents that the candidate understood that they were interviewing as a finalist for the open coaching position, the club learned during the interview that the candidate was not available to pursue the open position," a statement read.
"Once the club came to understand that the candidate was not available for the position, the discussion could no longer reasonably be considered a 'finalist pool’ interview. Therefore, the club remained obligated to bring an additional candidate from an underrepresented group into the 'finalist pool' or request a waiver from MLS detailing the extenuating circumstances that would not allow them to have done so."
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The news comes just days after it emerged that English clubs were failing to meet the FA 's diversity targets. The governing body's Leadership Diversity Code was launched in 2020, aiming to increase BAME representation at the elite level of the national game.
However, clubs haven't hit their targets in six of the eight categories embedded into the code, with coaching appointments in both the men and women's game being the only two fields in which teams have exceeded their targets for diverse hires.
The FA's chief executive, Mark Bullingham, commented: "This year shows some signs of progress, with a shift in recruitment processes that will start to change the game and the three governing bodies exceeding seven out of eight targets.
"However, while we saw clubs exceeding diversity targets for senior coaches in the men's game and coaches in the women's game, there is still a huge amount of work to be done across the game. We understand that substantive change will take time, but a number of clubs have already made progress, and we expect to see more clubs follow that lead in years to come."
