(British) Asian Players?

Sorry mate, dont agree with that.....and neither did the documentary.

I'm not going through the whole racism thing either except to say that it still exisits and plays an active part in football.

 

So you think clubs will take on killers if it will improve their team but wont employ asians. The fact some asian countries (japan, SK) produce good footballers and some (india, pakistan) dont and thats down to the popularity of the sport there and the culture here.

Im sure racism exists but its not stopping asian players getting to the PL.

 

Der! Why didn't I think of checking wiki?

Interesting. Good to see initiatives going on by various bodies to draw kids from Asian backgrounds into the mainstream. Whilst we've put a few ideas together on here, the wiki piece doesn't even try to explain how Asian kids aren't getting through.

 

So if it's not that (and I'm not suggesting it's a factor these days), then what else could it be then?

 

Cricket is much bigger so they chose that instead. Thats why theres footballers from the East of Asia where its very popular and not from central Asia where cricket is king.

It seems very bizarre that clubs will take on killers and rapists but you think they go "oh no, we cant have you sonny as your skin is a bit too brown" .

 

What i am trying to get across is that if you have ethnic leagues you will have 'gheto' football. different ethnic groups playing each other all the time and only getting to a certain level it restricts development. Youngsters at school play against each other but it seems from what is being said is that after school they go back to their own groups.

I remenber in my playing days having matches against say a Greek team but I dont think that there were any ethnic leagues. it was a long time ago. also if a greek team could get in an English player who was better than they had they would do it.

While you have unofficial seperatism standards will not improve. i think that is why there are so few asians in top level football.

 

Do I? What I actually think is that you need to read and understand before commenting with assumptions. Here's what I actually said.

The point of this thread is to gain a greater understanding of why it is that we have so few people from Asian backgrounds playing professionally when every other ethnic group is relatively well represented.

Whilst a preference for cricket might be a factor, Imaz points out quite correctly that there aren't that many UK Asians playing pro-cricket either.

QPR suggests that many 'Asians' are too middle class and education orientated to get involved. Great point but it doesn't explain why the talented kids from the poorer quarters (e.g. where Amir Khan comes from) we've all seen playing at schools and on Sundays aren't making the big time.

We're obviously working in shades of gray here, Flyer, not the black and white you're assuming mate.

 

I think this is a really valid point - the notion of football as a gamble (insert joke about Chopra's gambling addiction in here....).

Like many on here, I used to play kick-abouts with a proportional amount of Asian kids with a proportional amount of skill and talent so the demographic is there. They did seem to play less and less as the business end of school approached and so I'd speculate family reasons (taking over the family business) and a focus on education might be major factors. This is from an upper working class background so I can't really comment on the middle class or deprived inner-city areas.

Football, from what I can see, has no real support infrastucture to sponsor kids through the education establishment (beyond GCSEs) whereas cricket for example sees young players join the universities while being signed up to county teams. That does create the notion of "gambling" on a career in football that might not be there for other sports. The point still remains that if the British Asian kids were in the academies from early ages then it wouldn't necessarily seem such a risk but there does seem to be some invisible boundary preventing this either formed by clubs or the parents (or, more likely, a bit of both).

I would hope that we as a club, through our community work and future academy ambitions, may try to break some of these boundaries and I'm sure that Amit could be a figurehead for such a positive step.

 

Was it in "4 Year Plan" that Amit was shown promoting football in South Asia? Remember seeing him on TV but maybe it was on al-Jazeera? Anyone remember?

 

I don't remember it in the 4YP but missed bits with head in hand everytime Flav opened his mouth.

I would have thought a high-profile academy in India (similar to the Olympic one) would reap the two-fold benefit of raising our profile and tapping a future pool of players. Perhaps even an affiliated club?

 

No point, we wont be allowed to sign any of them anyway. India are ranked too low so their players cant get permits.

 

There's no one simple answer to this question.

There IS an element of racism, but this is by no means across the board, and by no means the most restrictive element in the equation. You need to throw into the mix the fact that football as a sport is less popular in the culture of asian nations than it is here in the UK - certainly for India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka you can basically reverse the popularities of football and cricket. Add on the pressures from parents for their kids to get their education sorted to the exclusion of all else, and you don't have the kids playing in the junior leagues and picking up the skills and the competitive buzz. Then you have the success of the national sides - apart from Japan and odd bursts from Korea, there are no successful Asian sides that play regularly in the World Cup and win regularly against the European or South American nations.

So there's no impetus to start playing, no success to aspire towards, no input from the parents or places like School or Junior League coaches, no infrastructure to bring them through, all overlaid with the impression (rightly or wrongly) that they will have to work harder and be better than their white friends and teammates just to get considered, simply because of their skin colour.

All in all, it's no wonder there are so few Asian players coming through our school and youth systems. It's something that the FA should be investing in, but it's not goign to be a top priority whilst players such as Chopra, Clark Carlisle, Paul Ince and Garth Crooks continue to over-play the race element, when there are many more reasons in the mix and simply rooting out the few racists left won't solve the problem on its own.

 

Interesting. Is that based on FIFA rankings and if it is where's the cut off point?

 

Not the point, this thread is about South Asian involvement in football, or the lack of it, not 'what's in it for QPR'. Try to take in the bigger picture occasionally, there are no prizes for being the most dogmatic poster on here.

 

Yeah, I think you have to play in 75% of games in the last 2 years unless injured and it has to be in the top 70 FIFA rankings.

 

Thanks, the first part sounds familiar but the second is just wrong and unfair in decent players from small countries.

 

I suppose the best example would be George Weah - former world player of the year and, because he's Liberian (assuming they haven't plummeted down the FIFA rankings since his retirement), wouldn't have been able to get a work permit even at his peak.

 

Good balanced wrap up stuff Willy. Thanks for that.

I'd only add into that Stan's (FFS) point about the Asian club that said it had only had a couple of enquiries from scouts / football authorities about their players in ten years...

 

Watching the Olympics it's amazing how every country seems to have Chinese origin table tennis players. Shows things are possible albeit in a different sport.

 

Point!