Bbc programme on football racism

[mikeyp102]

So just watched the programme and have to say that I agree with a lot that was said, especially the part about asians not getting chances to make the grade...I have been in teams and played against numerous others where the stand out performers we're asian yet none have ever even been given a chance. I know this was discussed in a previous topic and many people mentioned the ethos of Asian families encouraging their children that business is more important than sport, but obviously there are others hindrances.....what do others think on this?

The only point I didn't agree with was John Barnes saying black managers aren't given enough time to prove themselves.....he obviously is still bitter to the fact that he was useless

[The_Rev]

Speaking as somebody in a mixed white/Asian relationship I find it odd that how popular cricket is amongst Asian kids gets glossed over when the talk comes around to the lack of footballers from the subcontinent. There probably should be more, but how many Asian cricketers are playing first class cricket?

[Voinjama]

Let me throws this one out there. If Asian players are not given a chance to make it pro because of racism, then why are there so many black players who make it? Surely the black players would have these same racial barriers yet 25% of pro players are black or mixed.

[TRS-T]

Black players are quick/athletic which helps them.

Asians I dunno - maybe they are not good enough?

Also it's true that they focus more on education. You can't exactly be doing A levels if you wanna become a professional footballer.

Also apparently a lot of Asians play in Asian only leagues where there are no scouts. They need join the white/black leagues.

[TrentVilla]

I simply don't buy this racism in football within the game.

If a player is good enough they will get signed and if a manager is good enough they will get a job.

[Zatman]

I agree I dont think racism exists in that aspect. A manager or a chairman is not going to miss out on signing a talented player over their stupid opinions especially with so much money in the game

[villaajax]

I simply don't buy this racism in football within the game.

If a player is good enough they will get signed and if a manager is good enough they will get a job.

Completely agree. I don't get this 'positive discrimination' stuff either, "You must hire X amount of Black people and X amount of women" surely you give people jobs based on their ability. Surely that's just just a different way of excluding different groups?

[Oaks]

I simply don't buy this racism in football within the game.

If a player is good enough they will get signed and if a manager is good enough they will get a job.

I agree plus there is a massive untapped market for the first one to brake through.

[kurtsimonw]

The one point I thought was laughable was this "25% of footballers in England are black, why is this not represented in managers?" Well 87% of England is white, why is this not represented in football? It's bollocks. As Trent said, if someone is good enough - they'll get the job. Colour really isn't important, not in a business World.

I also think glorifying achievements the way ethnic minorities do is not the way to go. They clearly don't see themselves as equal, hence the need to celebrate "first black..", "first Asian..", etc. For example the 'Punjabi Wolves' fans, why do they essentially segregate themselves? Why not just be Wolves fans? This seeemingly need to seperate themselves from the pack is their doing, nobody elses. It's great that they're proud of their heritage and such, but I dread to think of the criticism fans would get if they called themselves the "White Holte Enders" or similar.

Thought the Baddiel bit was particularly interesting personally, I'd never even considered what he said. It is odd that it's really almost accepted.

[villa_shere]

The one point I thought was laughable was this "25% of footballers in England are black, why is this not represented in managers?" Well 87% of England is white, why is this not represented in football? It's bollocks. As Trent said, if someone is good enough - they'll get the job. Colour really isn't important, not in a business World.

I also think glorifying achievements the way ethnic minorities do is not the way to go. They clearly don't see themselves as equal, hence the need to celebrate "first black..", "first Asian..", etc. For example the 'Punjabi Wolves' fans, why do they essentially segregate themselves? Why not just be Wolves fans? This seeemingly need to seperate themselves from the pack is their doing, nobody elses. It's great that they're proud of their heritage and such, but I dread to think of the criticism fans would get if they called themselves the "White Holte Enders" or similar.

Thought the Baddiel bit was particularly interesting personally, I'd never even considered what he said. It is odd that it's really almost accepted.

Football just like the business world is racist. In the corporate world I know several people who have missed out on senior positions to white people with less experience and skill than them. Only thing is its hard to prove as John Barnes said.

As for players, i do agree with that if they are good enough they will get picked regardless of skin colour as clubs just want the best players for cheapest price.

Punjabi Wolves are a fantastic supporters group, they do not segregate themselves from the rest of the white fans, infact many of the members are white. As for White Holtender, we do get "somerset holtenders" or "Lancashire Holtenders", Punjabi Wolves is like that, these guys are from a punjabi background and probably have that common ground and created a supporters group on it, in a way it probably atracts more asian fans to the club. When they sit in the ground they sit all over the place so once again not segregated.

[blandy]

I simply don't buy this racism in football within the game.

If a player is good enough they will get signed and if a manager is good enough they will get a job.

I don't think that stands up to much scrutiny, sadly.

Things are a lot better than they were, but it's not gone away and probably never will.

It used to be ignorantly said or ignorantly understood that black people "don't like the cold" so though they might be skillfull or fast, they'd wilt on cold winters night in Doncaster. So black players never really got on in the game, with the rare exception. But when these exceptions showed that actually all the stuff about them being soft or whatever was complete guff, just ingrained ignorance in the game and in society, things improved.

I think that there's still areas of ignorance and prejudice. For example "black ex players are not bright enough to be managers". Or "Asians are not committed enough, because their families are anti football" or " when it comes to Ramadan..." or " they don't mix well" or all kinds of other slights. The result being that there are almost no Asian pro footballers.

It's a very different thing to say "there is no racism in football" which is not a remotely sustainable or credible claim, to "most people in football are not racist" which seems eminently to be the case.

There are racist fans , racist players , managers, boardroom people, coaches, scouts, and so on. Many less than there were, and surely more covert about when to reveal their prejudices.

The tv programme pretty much showed the way things are.

[LondonLax]

I simply don't buy this racism in football within the game.

If a player is good enough they will get signed and if a manager is good enough they will get a job.

Completely agree. I don't get this 'positive discrimination' stuff either, "You must hire X amount of Black people and X amount of women" surely you give people jobs based on their ability. Surely that's just just a different way of excluding different groups?

Well sometimes "positive discrimination" is useful just to break the ice. Once the stigma is gone and there are role models for minorities in important positions then it is no longer required and people are hired on merit from all backgrounds.

A friend of mine works for a massive multinational insurance company in the city of London. He has told me his boss said one night over drinks that he would never hire a black person because he believes their qualifications are "often forged".

It seems it is a culture with a lot of city firms. This companies entire office of 500 people has 0 black people and the only black guys you see are the security guards when you come in.

Perhaps a little positive discrimination would force morons like these people to get over their issues?

[SikhInTrinity]

Actually their is a mental problem with Asian players, they get signed up and they think they've made it, I'll refer to a certain Amrit Sidhu, the guy was a genius, it was so obvious the boy had huge talent however the thing he missed was desire, he was given a huge signing on fee to sign for Derby, he went on all the TV channels saying he'd made it etc. I don't get all this stereotypical that Asians just study, why is it Asians come through boxing, cricket and MMA.

[blandy]

You can pick examples, many of them of white or Black kids who also " think they've made it", though SikhInTrinity - it's a problem with all kids - too much money, too much arrogance, too little application, despite loads of talent with a ball.

It's important not to pick examples of players and use them to paint everyone from the same background in the same light. So to say (rightly) that many asian people hold cricket as their favourite sport and are less interested in football isn't the same thing as saying all asian people....etc.. and therefore draw the conclusion that this is why there are no asian footballers in the UK.

Possibly, with Asian kids, there's an extra focus on them, because people (clubs, media) want to make a story of it, because they are so few in numbers in clubs, if an Asian lad looks like he might break through, it's a story and so there's an extra level of "I'm famous" piles on to hopefuls.

John Barnes wasn't sacked because he was Black, I think it was because he was a crap manager. Another example of a fabulous player who couldn't transfer that to management. Like Bobby Charlton, Bryan Robson, Chris Waddle and all the others.

The difficulty with positive discrimination in football is that by picking players because of race, not because of talent and attributes, you weaken the overall level of quality.

I don't know how to remove the ingrained ignorance/prejudice/racism in people, it's probably impossible, you have to remove the people themselves, or let time remove them and them be replaced with people from a different generation and outlook.

No one now holds the views on Black players being only any good in warm weather that were commonplace 30 years ago, and in time the views on asian players that are held now will also be replaced with more sane assessments. Sadly though there are younger people today who are either wilfully or unconsciously as stupid as their predecessors when it comes to racial stereotyping.

[Shillzz]

Just watched the program.

It was well made, and Carlisle did a very good job of presenting it. I don't think it came up with anything particularly new or groundbreaking though and had the very familiar air of BBC3 about it.

[PussEKatt]

Is that the program that focused on Poland and the Ukraine ? Cause if it is then there is no hope at all in those 2 countries for asian players.

As for the comments so far on this thread. Asians are good at hockey,cricket,wrestling,judo, table tennis etc so they are athletic enough.I can`t understand why a decent size club have not set up an academy in a place like Calcutta.With the exchange rate the cost would not be much compared to what that club could gain.The very least a club should do is send a scout to asia,and take it from there.

[TRS-T]

It used to be ignorantly said or ignorantly understood that black people "don't like the cold"

This is actually true.

Look at who which players wear gloves in the winter - mainly black players and South American/Spanish players.

Doesn't mean that they play worse in cold weather though.

[TRS-T]

Is that the program that focused on Poland and the Ukraine ? Cause if it is then there is no hope at all in those 2 countries for asian players.

As for the comments so far on this thread. Asians are good at hockey,cricket,wrestling,judo, table tennis etc so they are athletic enough.I can`t understand why a decent size club have not set up an academy in a place like Calcutta.With the exchange rate the cost would not be much compared to what that club could gain.The very least a club should do is send a scout to asia,and take it from there.

Pretty sure that Bradford City signed Asian players/set up links in South Asia to try and attract Asian fans to Valley Parade.

[PussEKatt]

It used to be ignorantly said or ignorantly understood that black people "don't like the cold"

This is actually true.

Look at who which players wear gloves in the winter - mainly black players and South American/Spanish players.

Doesn't mean that they play worse in cold weather though.

Robinho left Man C to go to Ac Milan cause he said he was too cold in England,BUT I have seen black players playing in Russia ?!

[The_Rev]

The money is very good in Russia. Russian clubs rarely (if ever?) attract the absolute top players like Robhino though while English, Spanish and Italian clubs do so the players earning good money in Russia probably dont have as many options as players like Robhino.

Spanish clubs are always going to have the easiest time attracting South American players because the climate and culture is so similar and the language barrier does not exist. Italy has a lot of historical and cultural links with South America, especially Argentina (look how many famous Argentine footballers have Italian surnames) and the language barrier isnt so much of a problem as Italian and Spanish (and Portuguese) are all very similar tongues.

If the USA/Canada ever becomes a hotbed of football then most of their players will come to England for similar reasons.