News

by Kirsty Starmer

Football broadcasting was perhaps not the most obvious choice of career for a young Reshmin Chowdhury. For one thing, growing up in a risk-averse Bengali household in London didn’t lend itself to weekends spent at local football matches. For another, while many of her broadcasting peers spent their teenage years improving their skills ready for their professional sporting careers, Reshmin, not motivated at all to play sports herself, was instead finding any excuse to dodge PE lessons.

Yet one TV moment in the summer of 1990 changed everything. “The TV was on in my parents’ bedroom. I happened to see that game and it literally changed everything.”

That televised match was England’s 1-0 win against Belgium at the Italia 90 World Cup. The specific passion – and career-inspiring moment – was David Platt’s overhead volley in extra time which set England up for a quarter-final showdown with Cameroon.

The subsequent path to the multilingual interview and presenting work Reshmin is now known for – at TNT Sports, talkSPORT, the BBC, and BT Sport, among others – wasn’t, however, simple or straightforward. Despite her intense passion for sport and time spent singing and hosting shows while growing up, sports broadcasting roles weren’t a viable option back then. So Reshmin’s degree in politics and economics and journalism training took centre stage and news reporting became the focus of her initial ventures into the mainstream media.

The fire and passion she had for sport, ignited by that one serendipitous TV football moment, did not dissipate, however. It led her instead to take more of an ‘old school’ route to where she is today: watching programmes, looking at credits, writing to people, emailing them, picking up the phone. And it paid off, eventually, with a role at Real Madrid TV.

“There were times when I looked around and thought: when and where is it going to happen? I just couldn’t see it in the British media. However, I have a lot of faith that if it’s meant to happen, it will, and I genuinely couldn’t see why it shouldn’t happen for me. I always believed in myself and just because someone else didn’t or the pathway wasn’t clear, that was no reflection on me or my ability to do the job, if given the opportunity.”

 

Persistence

And it’s this self-belief – thanks in no small part to the complete belief her parents had that she could achieve anything she set her mind to – that has played a significant part in her career. Given the resilience and persistence needed to get to where she is today, you could even say it’s almost prophetic that her birthday coincides with Bangladeshi Victory Day – 16 December – a day celebrated to commemorate the independence of Bangladesh.

Rather than questioning why she should be the person doing that job, Reshmin would simply ask why not. “I just have a fire in me. I would look at other, established presenters and think ‘what do they have that I don’t have? What can this person do that I can’t?’ Not much, really. We look different and sound different, we have different backgrounds, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do that job too.”

But does she now, with the benefit of hindsight, believe that progress has been made since then? In some ways yes, and in other ways no. Where progress has come it has been hard fought, impossibly slow and, Reshmin believes, unnecessarily difficult when it didn’t have to be.

Statistics presented at the BCOMS D-Word Conference in November 2024 reinforce her view that getting into the industry from the ground up remains as difficult two generations on from when she was starting out. And it’s particularly hard for Bengalis or other Asians to get any kind of opportunity. Reshmin believes this needs to be managed at grassroots level by industry leaders.

Out of 34 broadcasting roles in the UK media at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, 18 were filled by women, but only two were Black women and none Asian. There was also no Asian representation in the written media for the same event or the 2024 Euros. And then when you consider Asian representation in sports broadcasting for 2023-24, the figure stands at just 4 per cent. Only 17 of the 421 roles – both men and women – were taken by Asian people.

Reshmin's verdict? “We’re not allowing enough diverse people through the door, never mind there being any kind of meritocracy once you’re in. The most important thing is having the equality of opportunity – something that I just don’t see right now.”

The true face of those numbers can be seen in the subtlest of ways too. As Reshmin looked around her during a team photo taken during the Paris 2024 Olympics, she realised that she was the only person from a minority ethnic background employed full-time by the broadcaster. At something as global and universally appealing as an Olympic games, it’s a stark reality.

“That’s why I get so excited when I see someone Bengali in the industry, which is a very rare occurrence,” she says. “I immediately want to know where they’re from, do we know people in common, how they got in… It’s like how my mum used to be when we’d bump into someone Asian or Bengali in the street and she’d chat for the next hour!”

Part of the issue, Reshmin believes, is that if you’re not aware of the workings of the media industry, which is often the case when you’re on the outside, then you just won’t know that these kinds of careers exist – and it’s the industry’s job to create that awareness.

“I’ve been saying to broadcasters for about 10 years that we need to get to people when they’re in schools – show kids that this is something they can do before someone shuts the door on them completely or they pursue a different route. If the only way to get people into the industry is through diversity schemes, then that’s a clear sign the industry isn’t open enough at the outset.”

And having gone to careers days at the school her mum taught at for 27 years, Reshmin has seen first-hand the impact on the girls coming through.

“I meet the girls, and they’ll say to me, ‘you’re really normal!’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes, I am! This is the point – I’m exactly like you. I just really, really wanted this job. I fought for it. So that doesn’t mean you can’t do it, you absolutely can.’ These girls need to see role models. Seeing really is believing.”

And while in recent years we hear companies talk about being committed to diversity all the time, the reality is often quite different, with a few notable exceptions. “Organisations like WIF are so open – everyone’s welcome,” says Reshmin. “And I think that’s a special part of it. It doesn’t matter what your background is: anyone is invited into WIF, because you’re all there for the passion of sport and you want everyone to do well.”

 

Be Inspired

When Reshmin came into the industry she knew no-one in TV or sport. All she had was a deep passion and a hunger to make it work. So the chance for one-to-one contact with people in the industry through events like the Women in Football Be Inspired Conference in partnership with Barclays is something she believes can be a real game changer – from a networking point of view, but also as a source of support. And that’s one of the reasons Reshmin is so excited to be hosting the next Be Inspired Conference at Wembley in March 2025.

“I’ve met so many people in my industry at events like Be Inspired, people who I hadn’t met previously, and yet we’re all backing each other. It really is an amazing forum, a sisterhood – everyone supports you, everyone wants you to do well, everyone recognises your journey. We’ve all had some kind of challenge and that’s why we back each other. Women in Sport events are always a lot of fun too – the audience is so dynamic; there’s engagement and I get so much out of just being there, even now.”

It's clear that this support continues to be very much needed, particularly for anyone from currently underrepresented social groups, and even at the career level that Reshmin has achieved. And it’s support that’s not just for career development but also, and perhaps more importantly, for all the things that come with being an underrepresented human in this environment: the need to be good at managing yourself, the weight of the burden of responsibility for change, the mental load of compartmentalising everything from one situation to the next and the guilt that you’re not doing enough on either side of your life.

“I’ve had men say to me quite blatantly that they just shut the door and their wife does everything. But when I shut the door, I’ve already done everything. And then I go to work! My kids are my world and I wouldn’t change a thing, but being a mother in any line of work, the constant burden of thoughts is overwhelming.”

And it’s because of her experiences and the different support needs and experiences she sees around her that Reshmin insists that we can’t brand everyone as just a ‘woman in football’. It’s different for everyone. As a multilingual woman aged over 40 with South Asian heritage, who’s also a mother and of Muslim faith, Reshmin’s 20-odd years in the media have brought with them experiences for each one of those diverse layers.

“I’ve had so many knockbacks in the industry, plenty of unconscious bias, a total lack of support when my kids were little and a lot of instances that didn’t need to be as hard as they were. It’s funny now, after all that, that I’m so relaxed about my job – I love it and see it as such a privilege. I’m more stressed about what to give my kids for dinner or if there’s enough milk in the fridge!”

But despite it all, Reshmin sees reasons for young girls to be enthusiastic and hopeful. When she was starting out, getting into the industry from the outside was much more hit-and-miss and you needed a lot of luck on your side to find someone prepared to let you in. Now, she says, despite nepotism and closed networks still existing in many areas of sport and media, the landscape is more open; there are more platforms you can broadcast on, and the profile of female presenters is much broader.

So, what does the future hold for Reshmin? Well, she’s certainly busy now with the football season in full swing and a number of projects in the back of her mind to bring to life. But she also has an eye to the future – for her and the industry.

“At some point I do want to mentor someone – someone Bengali like me – who I can just impart a bit of knowledge to and help them get somewhere. Because it’s hard. This industry is subjective, it’s difficult and it’s open to so much scrutiny… there are times when you just look around and think it’s just so unfair and you could leave and earn a lot more if you did. But sport is a passion – you’re getting paid to do something you love and that’s priceless, right?!”

And Reshmin’s career thus far really is testament to what can be achieved if you work hard for what you love.

Share this article