Is football discriminating against black people?
BBC’s recent report on football’s state of affairs has turned up some interesting statistics (that lend themselves to controversial conclusions):
- Only 2 out of 92 league clubs in England have black managers
- Less than 1% of senior coaching staff at the 92 league clubs are black - even though more than 20% of players are
Is there really discrimination in football against black people, or is there some other explanation?
The study study also tells us that:
- Just two of the nine most highly-qualified black coaches in the country - all of whom have better qualifications than Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate - currently have jobs in the league.
- Since its inception in 1992, there has never been a black English manager in the Premiership - even though about 25% of its players are not white. Jean Tigana managed Fulham and Ruud Gullit was in charge at Chelsea and Newcastle, but there has not been an English black manager in the top flight.
This is understandably a very sensitive subject (not like the ‘is Henry is a diver’ posts), so I wont say much except that:
1) How many black captains are there in the Premiership? In the whole of 92 clubs?
2) As Gareth Crooks says:
“The view among black footballers used to be that they had to be much better than their white counterparts to get in the team. The same seems to be true of black managers now.”
This seems plausible, but without being in the same environment myself I don’t think I can comment with any authority on the subject.
What do you guys think?
Sources:
Focus: Football’s black mark
Football ‘excluding’ black bosses
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I don’t really agree with this. There’s plenty of managers without jobs, not just black managers. But I’m sure its something that will pick up over time esp as theres more and more black players.
The thing is that until we can point to specific cases of clubs choosing white managers of better qualified black managers (and the Paul Ince matter is not one such case - McCarthy was a far better candidate), this will be nothing other than speculation. Bear in mind that most top quality managers played football over 15 years ago (when the ratio of white to black footballers was far different), wouldn’t one expect a high percentage white domination until this generation of players turns to management?
It’s quite clear that yesterday’s players become today’s managers. As such we should not be surprised if any racism (or whatever other way you would classify) previously found within the hiring of players is inherited by selection of managers.
The importance of this fact is exponentially increased when you consider the increasing commercialization of football. Why is Gareth Southgate a manager whilst ‘more qualified’ black managers sit at home — well this is clearly because Gareth Southgate was a popular and successful player who can Pique the interest of many varieties of football fan.
Made me laugh when he did the Ince/Keane comparison and said they did the same thing and were at the same level at United.
One commanded total respect from the players (until the end ;o) ) and the other was just a bloke that thought he was Bertie Big B@ll@cks if you excuse the phrase.
Wonder why Keane got the better offer….. Nothing to do with the respect he has in the game? Look at all the players who want to play under him.