What is Discrimination?

Discrimination means making choices about how we treat other people. Those choices can be made using real and relevant information, or they can be based on prejudice, stereotypes and bias.

Team selection provides a good example of fair, unfair and unlawful practices in sport.

• Decisions based on criteria such as ability, attitude, effort, and attendance at practise are fair and legitimate criteria to apply to senior team selection.
• Decisions influenced by favouritism and bias (for example, the coach who shows favouritism towards their own child) generally are not unlawful but are unfair and can impact negatively on the team.
• Decisions based on irrelevant personal characteristics (for example because a player is gay) are potentially unlawful. However there are exceptions (e.g., age restrictions and single sex competitions) to enable safe and equal competition.

To find out more about discrimination and the law based on disability, sex, race and sexuality read our following facts sheets:

Disability discrimination Fact Sheet

Sex discrimination/harassment Fact Sheet

Race discrimination/harassment Fact Sheet

Sexuality discrimination Fact Sheet

Click here for more examples of unlawful discrimination.