From local regional sport right up to the highest level, colour-blindness can impact players, staff and officials of any sports league/team or even make it impossible for a spectator to follow the action.
Its continued to grow into an ongoing problem in most sports. From kit clashes, trying to track a coloured ball under floodlights, advertising boards or the ever changing digital content. A huge portion of a sports target audience can be affected by these problems, with 1:12 males and 1:200 females suffering from a colour deficiency. This equates to over 300 million people worldwide.
With approximately 5% of the population affected by colour blindness, thousands of people are at risk of being alienated from the game if steps aren’t taken to make the sport more inclusive for people affected by colour blindness.
Progress has been made to avoid kit clashes and football organisations such as The FA, UEFA and the Premier League have taken steps to address these issues, including by revising kit regulations.
The Premier League, working closely with PGMOL, has a detailed process in place to ensure that kits selected for both teams in all fixtures are identifiably different colours and give the best possible kit combination for each match.
Premier League rules state that their Clubs must wear strips which differ visibly from one another to ensure everyone, including those with colour vision deficiency, will be able to distinguish clearly between the two teams.
Despite this, kit clashes have still been reported as recently as the 23/24 season.
This not only impacts the spectators, but also the players. Growing up those who have a colour deficiency may have already been at a disadvantage. Many training sessions are conducted using different coloured cones, bibs and training aids such as markers, to someone with CVD these could all look identical.
This is particularly an issue with younger children. They may feel as if they are successfully completing a task, but to the coach they are using the incorrect colours. The player can become used to hesitating to ensure the colour is correct, in a game scenario this hesitation could lead to the team being disadvantaged.
There are many ways we can ensure this does not happen. In a training session we can use appropriately coloured markers, or use differing sizes and shapes to clearly distinguish a difference.
How to help CVD in Sports
The biggest challenge for any player with CVD is distinguishing between their own team and the opposition. Try to avoid common colour blind kit-clashes in matches and training such as Red v Green, Blue v Purple or Yellow v Orange. Blue v Yellow/White is the most colour blind friendly option.
Marking out playing areas in training will be vital to the success of your practice. However, these zones may be hard to see for players with CVD so try not to use red or orange cones on a green surface. Yellow and white cones will provide the biggest contrast to a grass pitch.
There’s now a wide range of coloured footballs to choose from when purchasing your equipment for the new season. Unfortunately, some of these balls, such as the red or orange, may be extremely difficult to pick out against the green grass, especially from a distance. A traditional white ball will be much easier for colour blind players to see.
Players with CVD may struggle to follow instructions involving colours during team-talks and training sessions. When using coloured pens on tactics boards, aim to distinguish between teams using different shapes e.g. triangles v circles
Keeping these simple principles in mind on match and training days will have a significantly positive impact on the experience of all those with CVD. Ultimately, and most importantly, it will ensure that, colour blind or not, every single player can concentrate on dreaming about scoring a last-minute winner and not about the colour of their kit.
How someone without CVD views the kits
How someone with CVD view the kits
Recent Comments