A man who had claimed that Liverpool Football Club had unlawfully discriminated against him because of his race has had his claim thrown out by an employment tribunal.
Asad Farooq had applied for a job as a first-team operations officer in November 2022. The “high-pressure” role involved supporting the team in their day-to-day activities.
Farooq, from Birmingham, who is of British Asian heritage, was not shortlisted for interview, and later claimed that “unconscious bias” meant his application had not been taken forward.
At a tribunal at Liverpool civil and family court, the club successfully argued there was “no evidence whatsoever that race played any part at all”, and that his application was unsuccessful owing to a lack of experience.
The tribunal heard that 487 people had applied to the role, with 444 of these applications considered, before a more manageable shortlist was drawn up.
At the time, Farooq was in a temporary role, managing a catering contract at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the tribunal heard.
His application was initially rejected because of his salary demands, the tribunal heard, and when the first person to be offered the job turned down the role and applications were considered again, Farooq’s was rejected owing to a lack of experience in an operational first-team role.
Giving evidence during the tribunal, the hiring manager, head of first-team operations Louise Dobson, said: “We wanted somebody who was dealing with players, coaching staff, on a day-to-day level. Someone who was dealing with catering was not what we were looking for.”
Farooq said he first believed he had been discriminated against when he saw on LinkedIn in May 2023 that a temporary staffer called Anna Garnett, who had limited experience, was fulfilling the role.
However, the tribunal heard, she had been brought in to cover some basic administrative tasks before the successful candidate, Zac Foley, was able to take up the position.
after newsletter promotion
Foley joined the club from Blackburn Rovers, where he had been academy football operations manager and pre-academy manager since 2019, and is still in the role at Liverpool, the tribunal heard.
Delivering a majority ruling, the employment judge Nicola Benson said: “The majority view is that the evidence is clear. At the stage she carried out the shortlisting again, with the intent to reduce the number of 444 applications to a more manageable number, there are no facts or inferences from which we could conclude it had anything to do with the claimant’s race.”
One of two magistrates sitting with her disagreed, believing that Farooq should have been taken forward for interview.
