John Barnes says being black has damaged his career as a manager

I did read the headline only but having read what you put above, my opinion doesn't change. He is a **** manager and he's using skin colour as the or part of the reason he's not got a managers job. This is what I think is indirect racism, why bring it up? If you're good enough you'll get a job.

 

They won the league the following season.

He didn't get offered another job because he didn't impress enough.

 

Well it is a bit stupid cos lets face it.... footballers have been to the fore of beating racism. The reality is for someone to be in the upper echelons of anything that have to be 50 or so and lets face it globally we've only had women let alone minorities get to this stage recently.

How many candidates for the next election will be from minorities and how amny will be in a position having worked over past 20 years to be a minister? how many women for that matter.....

its not a closed shop! its requiring quality of candidate and experience! I will contend that right now 20 somethings out there are not thinking this way that barnes is.... not those who've got the skills and are succeededing

In 20 years time they'll be up there.

women for the first time are seriously entering the us presidental elsection... these things take time.

How many real great candidates for football manager jobs are there from minorities... how many are going forward for refereeing... etc etc... how many are putting in 10 years to get the qualifications and experience and ability to run a club?

Ince? eh no..... hmmmm there are plenty of players but they all seem to want to have a whine... sol campbell nobody takes seriously... will rio Ferdinand get his badges and work at a club under another guy or will he jump right in two footed and get the sack.... hmmmm. We will see who'd got the skills for these roles as they mature. a lot get so much dosh they might say f it i don't need it.

The guy i think you should all point these guys to is garry neville... he's secured himself a decent position with england, is doing all his coaching badges and will have pro license (more than many managers) and he has plum job in the meantime and will cherry pick his first job so that he's not going to fall on his face. Mark my words he's not dumb that lad.

 

john barnes at any time could have walked up to say evans or even houlller and got himself a coaching job to develop at LFC... no doubt in my mind.. he never did. Why?

cos secretly he didn't want another job did he? he is prob just speaking out on some other issue and having a moan

 

tbh mate I just don't think it stacks up. He got a top job to begin with and he's talking about second chances??? My sympathy is with the dozens of quality up and coming managers in the lower leagues that will never get a "first chance" at managing a top club. I honestly honestly don't see why any football chairman wouldn't hire someone on race.

Bloody hell, we have enough managers from the continent who are ****!

 

Exactly.

The fact that he was ****e at it aside, he also played the race card post his sacking, which I'm sure hasn't exactly helped him in his search for gainful employment.

That said, just how far down the pyramid has he actually tried to get a job? How many applications has he made? Or is he sat there waiting for his phone to ring?

I can't stand self pity, but when it comes from an ex multi millionaire footballer who's blown the lot and is now bitter as ****, it's even worse

 

I'm sure there's still plenty of racism about, but I think for people like Barnes their celebrity might overcome that prejudice to a large extent.
It doesn't really make much sense as a reason in his case - having given him the job in the first place, why would anyone then sack him for reasons other than performance?
I know he talks about the difficulty of getting another job after, but whether or not his colour is the deciding factor is purely speculative.
Just as racism is wrong, so is accusing someone of it without firm evidence.

 

I think that's far too simplistic a view. How on earth can any of us say for certain if you're good enough, you'll get a job. I was in a restaurant in London a few years back, the place was almost empty. A group of black people came to the door to be seated and a waiter rushed over and said they were full. Several minutes later a white family appeared, waited in the foyer area to be seated and were shown in. We spent the entire time there with it half empty so it seemed obvious there weren't waiting for several large parties to arrive. They were discriminating based on skin colour. I have several personal anecdotes like that to show racism is alive and well. To somehow expect it doesn't exist in relation to employment is naïve.

 

3 strikes is fairly damning mind...

roy evans had lfc, then swindon then.....

 

I agree with most of this especially that he was lucky getting a top job to begin with. But there's enough stories out there from people of colour to at least put a doubt around it.

 

He never said he was sacked because of his colour, he's intelligent enough to know what he was sacked for

 

Racists still exist - shocker that. But quite what that's got to do with Barnes managerial career is anyones guess.

Barnes was given the job at Celtic one of the biggest clubs in the UK, despite having nothing of note on his managerial CV.

So having been given the job how can he possibly try and spin his dismissal into a race issue? It's insulting nonsense and does the entire cause no favours.

 

His point is not the quality of manager, obviously someone has looked into this and found that ****e black managers find it much harder to get another job than ****e white managers.

It is true, ****e white managers do go from one failure to another contantly. Can't comment on whether Barnes is right but that bit is at least factual

 

Generally only the ones who do a good job for a while and then it eventually goes pear manage to stay on the merry go round, and move on to another gig. I'm sure if you bothered looking you could find plenty who were given a chance or 2 and then hit the buffers.

Barnes had 2 attempts at club management and bombed out within months both times, as he was complete pish.

 

Which is why I continued with the rest of my post.

 

Failure is failure though, if I had nothing but sackings on my CV, the possible employer is not going to want to know how it all went until the sacking, football is different granted but still

And yes Barnes is a gash manager, most are in their first few jobs.. so there's that to point to I guess. I don't think he just blurted this out though. I reckon there are reasons he's taken this view, he's not just "playing the race card" as you call it. Claiming that willy nilly could be deemed racist

 

The only thing you're guaranteed in football management is the sack.

You can count on the fingers of one hand how many managers at the top level of the game in the modern era haven't had the push at some point in their career.

 

Can't disagree. Though to deny outright that there is a racism issue is misguided too matey.

 

It is racist. As he's accusing the game of institutional racism based on the fact that he hasn't landed another management job.

For me, the game should call him out on it, and make him qualify that comment with some facts around how many rejections he's had and when they were.

He shouldn't be allowed to float that one out there without facing some form of challenge.

 

Exactly - and when asked about his time at Celtic and if he encountered any racsim he said "I think they had more on an issue with me being English"

I'm going to wait till I've seen the interview before making any real judgemnent but will say that the headline is a disgrace - as you point out, the article itself doesn't have him saying it at all.

I'll probably end up being biased in his favour though - the man was a bloody legend in my eyes!