Black managers face "hidden resistance"

[TreeVillan]

The problem with society today is that when you fail at something then it's always somebody elses fault, and never your own. The Race card explosion of the last 20 years is a result of that.

Edited March 30, 2015 by TreeVillan

[Marka Ragnos]

I know it sounds like they're just raising the race card, but it is weird how there are so many black players yet so few coaches and managers. I'm struggling to think of a logical reason for it.

 

For pete's sake, it's not about Barnes, is it? You can make it all about him and ignore the underlying issue, which is much bigger and more important than John Barnes, right?

 

It starts at the top ...

 

 

FA too white and too male and it must change, says Dyke

"Overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly white" Football Association (/tags/football-association.html) chairman Greg Dyke (/tags/greg- dyke.html) said of his own organisation on Saturday, saying the governing body must change.

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2015 by Plastic Man

[villa4europe]

would still like more information with regards to the unsuccessful applicants before making judgement, are there no black people at the top because of racism or is it as simple as only 10% of applicants are black? the likes of barnes and ince saying they cant get a job, how many black managers are currently unemployed? how unsuccessful have they been? rather than barnes saying he cant get a job why isnt he saying i applied for this club and here's who got the job, then we can make a decision on who is more qualified

 

a good example of this would be sol campbell complaining that gary neville got the england coaching role ahead of him, seeing as neville is more qualified, knows more of the players, is a very respected pundit, considered a bit of a favourite amongst football fans and media types because of his punditry and also had his brother as part of the england set up to say its down to skin colour alone is utter nonsense

 

if john barnes wants me to believe he has a case then he needs to prove someone less qualified got a job that he applied for

[Condimentalist]

The problem with society today is that when you fail at something then it's always somebody elses fault, and never your own. The Race card explosion of the last 20 years is a result of that.

 

I can't agree with the recent comments of Campbell or Barnes but I think that's a pretty naive statement tbh. 

[maqroll]

I'd like to know how many black men have or are going for their badges and are being denied jobs. 

[Avfc96]

What jobs has Barnes applied for then recently? Im guessing none. word removed.

[gordoncharles]

In the recent African Cup of Nations only 4 of the 16 coaches were black.  What is the reason for that, because it certainly can't be racism?

 

Tends to suggest that jobs are awarded on the perceived merits of the individual doesn't it?

 

 

Edit: I should also point out that Burkina Faso's coach is the notorious former Cambodian dictator, Paul Put.

Edited March 30, 2015 by gordoncharles

[Marka Ragnos]

What jobs has Barnes applied for then recently? Im guessing none. word removed.

 

Again, you're reducing the issue to one of Barnes' character or behavior, and that's beside the point. His comments have all the hallmarks of something said at the beginning of a society-wide process that will likely take decades to play out. Why do you think the story was reported and is grabbing so much attention? Because people are concerned. Yet whenever the issue comes up, there's an instant effort to attack the credibility of the source. "Oh, he's a git" "He's full of himself." "He's an egomaniac."  "He's a failure." Etc etc etc

 

There is a problem! It's wide and deep and persistent.

 

Les Ferdinand says entrenched racism curbs opportunities for BME coaches

 

• QPR director of football makes comments in Channel 4 documentary 

• Ferdinand: racism responsible for lack of black and ethnic minority coaches 

• FA welcomes 70% rise in reporting racist abuse

 

The Queens Park Rangers director of football, Les Ferdinand, has warned that entrenched racism in football is responsible for the disproportionately small percentage of coaches from black and ethnic minority (BME) backgrounds.

 

Interviewed by Trevor Phillips, a former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for a Channel 4 documentary being broadcast on Thursday, Ferdinand says that he believed the John Terry racism case was handled terribly by the game and revealed wider attitudes.

 

 

Cue ad hominems on Les Ferdinand ...

 

 

Edited March 30, 2015 by Plastic Man

[Mic09]

If I was an owner of a football club I wouldnt employ Barnes even if he was green.

Why do people assume business men who run multi million pound football clubs look at the colour of skin when making the decision who will be best to increase their profit?

Surely if you were racist and owned a shop and had two cvs handed in, one by a rubbish, lazy white person with no experiance and a highly qualified and eager to work black person you would chose the latter. Otherwise you wouldnt stay in business for too long.

[Xela]

I'd like to know how many black men have or are going for their badges and are being denied jobs. 

 

That's the question. If 30% of the coaches doing badges are black but not getting jobs then there possibly could be an issue. If its only 5% then the representation of black managers in the league is about right looking at current numbers.

[blandy]

there is no actual evidence that there is a problem.

 

A lack of black managers isn't in itself evidence of anything, it is simply a statistic.

 

All there is at the moment is people like Sol Campbell making accusations and someone like John Barnes who seems to forget he has been given a chance as a manager and failed badly twice. 

 

There is a lack of English managers in the game and particularly in the PL, is that evidence of a "hidden resistance" or racism from club owners to English managers?

There is circumstantial evidence there is a problem. It's not nailed on conclusive, but it is suggestive of there being a problem. And the stats are part of that evidence. I completely agree that individuals like Sol Campbell and John Barnes don't exactly further the case, because they are to put it mildly, rather selective in their arguments, and it comes across as self serving and non-analytical. Maybe understandably so - they have both experienced vile racism as part of their lives, which would surely cause anyone in their position to consider that there is racism against people like themselves.

 

I'd like to know how many black men have or are going for their badges and are being denied jobs. 

I doubt there are figures, but we do know that most managerial appointments are of white managers, and that the level of white appointments is higher in percentage terms than the number (18% ish) of black people qualifying as managers.

 

We know there is a long history in football of unjustified and ridiculous views about black players. Older people will remember all this "they can't defend", "they don't play in the cold weather" or "they can't play in goal" and loads more.

I'd think in older boardrooms and so on, that some of that still lingers, if not for players, then for managers.

The difficulty with "if they're good enough, they'll get the jobs" (which is true) is that they need to be given the same chance of proving they're good enough as anyone else, and that's where there appears to be a problem. it looks from the data that such chances are not equally handed out.

As for the reasons for that, I doubt it's purely racism, I suspect (with no evidence to back it up, other than anecdotal/observational) that some other factors may be involved, too - for example wonderful former players like Ruud Gullit, Edgar Davids etc. will be favoured perhaps because of their renown. It's enough to overcome any lingering (misplaced) concerns over "a black person will be no good as manager" - i.e. known very good players get a chance, more so than run of the mill players.

Perhaps there's also concern over "if we give this guy a chance, he'll be unpopular with the fans (because he's black)". WIth that too, a former player who is black would not suffer from that, even if it were true that fans would reject a black manager (I don't think it is true, but 70 year old chairmen might think it was).

So Paul McGrath would be massively popular at Villa, for example (personal troubles aside - but we love him almost unconditionally). Ian Taylor the same, and so on.

 

With so many players being black and so few managers being black and that having been the case for a long time, there does appear to be a case that with managers almost entirely being made up of former players, that there's a bit of a problem. Hopefully it's something that will change by itself, but a helping hand would be good. Whether that's compulsory interviews for at least one black candidate, I'm not sure, but there's a difficulty with that, too. The difficulty that if after the first (say) 6 jobs don't go to a black person, the 7th becomes a massive media circus, with all kinds of implied but unstated hints of racism, leading to the best choice being affected by the media pressure and fear of being labelled a racist club, or racist chairman - exactly the kind of poorly argued case made by Sol Campbell.

 

It just needs talent to be given a fair chance by fair people, and talent will then knock down any remaining vestiges of racism in selections.

[Marka Ragnos]

If I was an owner of a football club I wouldnt employ Barnes even if he was green.

Why do people assume business men who run multi million pound football clubs look at the colour of skin when making the decision who will be best to increase their profit?

Surely if you were racist and owned a shop and had two cvs handed in, one by a rubbish, lazy white person with no experiance and a highly qualified and eager to work black person you would chose the latter. Otherwise you wouldnt stay in business for too long.

 

Yes, a handy, idealized scenario, but you're describing essentially the make-believe end of the process, not its roots deep in the social fabric. Potential managers don't just magically pop up, finished products, for openings with their CVs. There is a lifetime of cultivation and preparation that goes into the creation of that CV, and the fact is, for whatever reason, black applicants AREN'T showing up. That's where the problem lies.

 

The disjunction between the numbers of black players versus managers and officials in the general UK football context (where many agree that racism persists) sends the wrong message.  

Edited March 30, 2015 by Plastic Man

[maqroll]

 

 

I doubt there are figures

But for me, the figures will either prove or disprove inherent racial bias in the hiring of black coaches and managers; without figures, it's just conjecture.

 

That said, I'm not naive enough to think that racial bias against black managers doesn't exist. But is it to the degree that Ferdinand claims it is? I'm sure there's a bias against American coaches as well, but is it a crisis?

 

That's why we need data. How many black men in Britain who have their coaching credentials are unemployed in football, or prevented from advancing in football?

[The_Rev]

[NurembergVillan]

Both John Barnes and Paul Ince have had opportunities to manage high profile football clubs and they've been spectacularly crap.  Chris Powell continues to be a manager at Huddersfield and has, on the whole, been pretty crap - although his record at Charlton was better than that in Yorkshire.  Sol Campbell appears to have done nothing to suggest he deserves an opportunity to be a manager, except tell people that he deserves an opportunity to be a manager.

 

There are often players who you feel may go on to have a good coaching career, for one reason or another.  Usually because they're articulate in interviews or were an inspirational captain, or both.  Gareth Southgate was always going to be a manager.  Bryan Robson too.  Paul Ince seemed a good shout, and then Steve Bruce, Gary Neville and Tim Sherwood too.  They've all had mixed levels of success and experience, but they were all guys you felt could be coaches.

 

How many retired black players have you thought "they'll be coaches", and then they weren't?  Ince, Barnes and Powell all fit the mould but haven't been great.  Just like Bryan Robson.  Campbell seemed to fit the mould but just appears to have morphed into a self-important twonk.  Dion Dublin set about inventing a musical instrument, while Les Ferdinand is a DoF.  David James?  Ian Wright?  Kieron Dyer?  All players with plenty of England caps but don't seem to have pursued a coaching career.

 

I've gone on a bit of a ramble, but it's one thing if there is racism in the game (and I'm not denying that it may be the case) and another altogether if there just aren't the right candidates for managerial roles who happen to be black.  They have to be good coaches/managers first and foremost.

[villa4europe]

I thought David James would, he seemed to be lining up quite a clever way in, player coach / manager at smaller clubs but then he also seems to be in a lot of trouble off the pitch so people will steer clear

Most will aim for punditry because it's easier but then I also think what isn't discussed or talked about by the FA is what the astronomical wages are going to do to coaching in this country, I'd guess for a lot of the ex players staying in football was 50/50 between a love of the game and needing a job, Luke shaw can retire with £25m after his utd contract finishes at age 24... a lot of these guys won't need to stay in football, I think there's going to be a change to coaching in the near future anyway

[Stevo985]

David James managed a team in the Indian league I think so I reckon he'll try his hand at some point.

 

Not often that goalkeepers make decent managers though.

[villa4europe]

yeah thats what i thought but was also told he's gone there chasing cash because he is broke, sure he did his badges at bristol and was also a player coach in iceland or somewhere daft

 

in 10 years time if he isnt a manager a prem will the race card get played when in reality people are put off him because of his financial troubles?

[YLN]

Very few black people have gotten jobs with top clubs. Some of them have been spectacular failures. No one has really been a tremendous success. Does that mean that black people make bad managers? No it's too small a study. Why don't more black people become managers? There are lots of reasons. Here are maybe three of them.

 

1. It's assumed that because they're black, they won't become a manager, and this is cemented in their thinking when they're very young, mainly because there are no black managers, for the same reason. So it's self perpetuating. They play their career from the very start thinking, when I'm finished I won't be a manager.

 

2. Black players are more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I think this is true. I'm not really sure in England, but I imagine it is. Anyway if it is true, their family is likely to be poorly educated and they similarly won't put much of an emphasis on gaining skills outside of what they need to do on the pitch. Yes football is a working class game, and most players come from poor backgrounds, but maybe those that come from slightly better backgrounds are those that go on to become managers. I'm speculating. But in general I think black kids are more likely to have a poorer education and come from a poorer background than white kids. Look at the new generation of managers. What was their background? *Yes Gabby's dad was a doctor, but he grew up with a white mother from a poor background, so he's an anomaly that doesn't feature in this study.

 

3. A manager had a mentor. Tim Sherwood's was Dalglish. Martin O'Neill's was Clough. Because managers are white I think they're more likely to form relationships with their white players moreso than their black players. Certainly in the past this would have been the case, maybe not at the moment, so we may see black players become managers in the near future. The former black players that are now of the age of becoming a manager are less likely to have had this mentorship. 

 

So this racial distinction which leads to very few black players becoming managers is not to do with them applying for jobs and not getting them. It stems from their overall position in society and a culture in football that was not conducive to black players becoming black managers. Positive discrimination will not improve this scenario, as it is a much deeper problem. The reason there aren't more black managers is because black players do not become managers, and that is due to a multitude of reasons, and therein is the racial discrimination or difference, not on the day they get called for interview. 

[Meath_Villan]

need some women in the league as managers ....................in for the hard tackle an all