For the fourth year in a row, Major League Soccer earned a A grade from the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport for promoting more racial hirings and separately maintained a B-minus grade for gender hiring practices and an overall B-minus average for both categories, according to Wednesday's USA Today.
The league's average number grade, though, fell two points to 84.5 from last year's 86.5 and the league received an failing grade for its lack of minorites hired as general mangers, as all 32 of them are white, and MLS saw the number of minority head coaches fall to two, with those being Carlos De Los Cobos of the Chicago Fire and Martin Vasquez of Chivas USA, who was recently fired long after the report was finalized.
The percentage of minorities hired as assistant coaches in MLS improved from 9.5% to 19.6% since 2008.
The league was positively cited by the institute for having some of the best diversity initiatives in the sports industry, inclduing diversity awareness and sexual harassment training for all teams and members of the league office, outreach programs in Hispanic and black communities, recruitment efforts to hire more women and minorities, and a coaching diversity initiative similar to the National Football League's "Rooney Rule", requiring MLS teams to interview a minority candidate for any vacant position on a team.
The institute received information from MLS headquarters and from team media guides to use in the study.
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