Leeds Beckett University and Professional Game Match Officials Limited KTP 24_25 R2

Elite football referees are turning their own workplace into a testbed for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practices that they can then sell to other sports and industries. The problem is straightforward: organisations like the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) have built up EDI knowledge internally but lack the capacity to package and commercialise it. Most EDI training is generic, bought in from outside consultants who do not understand the high-pressure, high-visibility environment of elite sport. PGMOL wants to turn that weakness into an advantage. If this Knowledge Transfer Partnership succeeds, PGMOL will develop a commercial arm that sells EDI services—training, audits, consultancy—to other football bodies, sports leagues, and non-sport employers. The funding model shifts from grant dependency to self-sustaining revenue. The concrete output is a new income stream built on the credibility of elite refereeing, not on abstract theory. This is applied commercial development, not fundamental science. There is no laboratory work or discovery-driven research. The project is about embedding existing EDI know-how into a saleable product and building the business infrastructure to sell it. The impact is organisational: a sports governing body becomes a commercial EDI provider, and other sectors gain access to EDI tools stress-tested in elite football.