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

What the **** does that matter? Do you know how many jobs he applied for? What the profile of those jobs were? How far down the pyramid he attempted to go?

In other words, maybe he didn't get a job for 8 years because he didn't try very hard.....just a thought like

 

It's only by looking at inequalities that you improve the situation. Going back to the 60's 70's and 80's if fans had their way there would be no black players in the pl! Do you not think a kick it out campaign is necessary either?

 

High profile manager? Barnes?
He was a high profile player yes, but manager?
Didnt he manage Tranmere?

 

The programme goes out tonight so we'll find out then.

 

Celtic and Jamaica

 

Celtic? Did an awesome job there didn't he?
Didnt he have like a 30% loss ratio? Managing a team who are equivalent to a mid table PL side in a league of 11 other teams who are equivalent to pub teams.
If you dont win the SPL with Celtic every season at a canter you have failed HARD. Especially now they haven't even had Rangers to compete with in the last few years

 

There was blatant racism in the 60's, 70's and 80's though, things like throwing bananas on the pitch at black players is fairly hard to miss!

The current argument is based purely on numbers so its a theory. I have no doubt racism still exists at the higher levels in football but that's more to do with most chairmen being from the older generation (no way all of them either) where they are stuck in those 60's, 70's and 80's incorrect ways of life. Given time, the situation will naturally change anyway.

 

When you say "black"..it implies anything other than white.So when you say white..does it excludes Polish Jews or Russian.?
Stop kidding us.

 

Like all outdated, decadent mindsets (Racism, Religion etc) it will slowly fade away and become less and less prominent over time with education and changes in culture.
Look at the influence of hip hop music in Youth culture these days. You seriously think in 20 years when these kids are running the planet they will be discriminating against black people?

 

Well when I say black, I mean black.
You class Chinese people as black?

 

"hidden racism" can't be proved to exist because its hidden, if any of it isn't hidden well enough it should be exposed by those it affects, if Barnes, Ince or any of the others that have stated their skin colour prevented them getting a job have evidence they should make it public without fear.

Or say nothing until you have a dossier of examples of racism you can prove happened, until then its just statistics that can be viewed or manipulated to show both sides of the argument(like Labour and the Tories do on a daily basis), until then Barnes will just look to some like someone that ain't good enough and using a racism as an excuse for his own failings.

 

Personally I think it's about cycles.

There are now a lot more black players in the game - in a few years time, they'll retire and there'll be more going into management.

Basically - there will be a bigger pool of black candidates to choose from in the next decade or so.

Quite surprised about Barnes's comments - a) he's had a shocking start to a managerial career, and b) he spoke really well on the Suarez saga.

Just seems out of character for him.

 

You cannot accuse Barnes or Ince of being racist for the simple reason they were both married to white women. I do not know of now.

 

I never called them racist.

 

I have a lot of empathy with this view and it's exactly why tonight's programme will make for very interesting viewing.

 

Which presumably equates to 6 managers from 92 league clubs. Which doesn't seem many on the face of it, but is in fact over-representative comapred to population.

Another thought - at the end of the day, how many top-profile English managers can you name? Redknapp and Allardyce are probably the two biggest. Apart from one season with Tottenham, neither of them have made the top four. There are a few Scottish and Irish managers around, and Pulis is Welsh, but there's also a lot of imported managers. How many black managers are there in countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, France? I don't know, but I'm guessing not many (I couldn't name any off the top of my head). I know Seedorf was at Milan.

 

You've hit the nail on the head here. Barnes has spoken before about overt racism which is easy to spot and passive - or as you say hidden racism - which is harder to point out, precisely because it is hidden. The numbers/stats call it what you like, is, as far as I'm concerned, a starting point for a debate. Figures can be manipulated any way you like so it will be interesting to hear what Barnes is going to say on it.

Like a lot of these discussions about race it is overwhelmingly written about by white people and having studied race to MA level, I find that it has a habit of turning into a scenario of - black speaks about discrimination, whites shout 'shut up and sit down' !

 

Being a good footballer (white or black) will not necessarily makes you a good football manager.

 

Very true

I read that there's a correlation between the players picked as club captain and players who go on to manage. Speculation that clubs see management material in the players they pick as captains. Which leads on to - how many black captains are there or have there been? Again it's just an interesting point and not me or anyone who put out the theory saying there should be more black captains

 

Last black captain I can remember was Patrick Vieira. Maybe I am wrong. !