The Football Association is to invest more than £1.4million over the next five seasons aimed to help more coaches from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities develop through to the elite level.
BAME coach bursaries will provide funding for around 80 to 90 per cent of the total course costs at UEFA B, UEFA A, Pro licence and Advanced Youth Award levels.
The investment also includes three full-time fixed-term appointments each season which will see coaches gain experience working within the FA's technical division set-up, including England development teams.
Since 2012, 168 BAME coaches have received 228 of the bursaries, some 26 at UEFA A License level, 66 at UEFA B License level and 136 Youth Award Modules.
The likes of QPR manager Chris Ramsey and Huddersfield boss Chris Powell have both benefited from such opportunities, along with Ugo Ehiogu, in charge of Tottenham Under-21s, former Notts County manager Chris Kiwomya and Brian Deane, who recently had a spell in charge at Norwegian club Sarpsborg 08.
FA technical director Dan Ashworth hopes the initiatives can continue to have a positive impact on recruitment numbers of BAME coaches at elite level clubs.
"We need to give people the confidence that those roles are there and that they are open for everybody. So we say (to all those aspiring coaches), get your qualifications, make sure you are in a position where you can do the role," Ashworth said.
"From that, we will take a firm stance and a real commitment to try and change the percentages and the numbers to make it more reflective of society and more reflective of people in professional sport and make sure that the coaching, the support positions and influential positions within our game are fully represented."
Former deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association Brendon Batson is now in the role of e quality consultant with the FA.
Batson - who was the first black player to break into the Arsenal first team in 1972, before going on to successful spells at Cambridge and then West Brom - hopes the moves will give renewed hope for development of BAME coaches.
"We need to break that circle of every generation of black players coming out of the game, or aspiring black and Asian coaches looking at it and going 'why are we investing ourselves because we know we've got no chance'?", he said.
"At the end of the three-year coach bursary programme, we have got coaches with various levels of qualification, 67 per cent of them gained experience in elite coaching environments, and 18 gaining part or full-time employment in the game."
The FA also fully supports the principles behind the 'Rooney Rule', in terms of "open and transparent recruitment from the widest possible talent pool", having endorsed a voluntary recruitment code now being applied to all technical role vacancies within the governing body.
FA board member Heather Rabbatts said: "We want to see clubs embrace the practice of shortlisting and interviewing BAME coaches and managers with the requisite qualifications, alongside their similarly qualified white counterparts.
"It is a guarantee to shortlist and interview BAME candidates who meet the qualification criteria.
"We see the voluntary recruitment code as a further positive step to shift the culture of closed networks of recruitment and invite clubs to sign up to the code and implement their support for open, transparent and equal opportunity recruitment."
Source: PA
