Garth Crooks questions FA over bid diversity

Garth Crooks has criticised the Football Association for failing to keep up with the game on diversity issues after a British National Party politician attended the launch of England's World Cup bid.

Richard Barnbrook was at Wembley on Monday for the launch of the bid to host the competition in 2018 or 2022.

And former Tottenham player Crooks feels the BNP presence was compounded by what he saw as the lack of black and minority ethnic figures at the event.

"What I find so desperately sad is that whatever your view about the BNP being there, there is a bigger view," Crooks, who now works as a BBC pundit and is an adviser to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said in The Guardian.

"If it had been a really diverse event, if there had been a selection of BME groups there, we could have got over this.

"We've spent 20 years trying to drive the BNP out of football and here they are getting an invitation to the launch of our World Cup bid.

"I see progress in the modern game but the FA doesn't seem to have caught up with modern thinking and what people in the game and society expect. They can talk about diversity but where is it?"

Bid bosses were quick to apologise for Barnbrook's presence after the event on Monday.

An England 2018 spokesman said: "All elected members of the GLA (Greater London Authority) were invited to the launch.

"We recognise that the presence of one elected member, who is playing no part in the England 2018 bid, has caused offence and we apologise. He should not have been present at the event and will not be at any in the future."