5% of PL managers are black and about 10% of English people are black - that isn't that bad. The best person gets the job anyway, black or white. Some people want equality of results rather than equality of opportunity.
I listened to it whilst I was caught in that M27 jam Thursday night. Good interview with Ellie Aluko on that show as well which Fran may have been referring too. She has no desire to go into coaching or management as she has completed her law degree. When she started out women were still paying subs to play and football was just not a career choice
Why are there no loud cries for more home grown Asian players and managers? There is a huge population of ethnicities from Asia, yet apart from one TV documentary I saw a few years ago about an all Asian league, one hears very little about it. What gets me is that when I see a player or a manager, I see a person not a colour. I look at their eyes and listen to their words and that is what I use to form any opinion I need to about them.
I think there have been attempts to get more Asians into football and a couple of problems have been highlighted. Firstly, Asian parents favour education over a career in sport and, secondly, Asians show a preference for other sports. A bit of a sweeping statement, but could it also be down to Asians tending to be smaller and lighter than white and black boys. Yoshida said recently that he was considered big in Japan, then was shocked when he saw Lambert in the gym.
If that statement is true, then there isn't a problem. But clearly plenty of people are unsure that it is true. Les Ferdinand's contention in the Trevor Phillips documentary was that, in spite of having gained all all his coaching badges, outside of QPR (whose owner is Asian for what that's worth) he can't even get an interview,never mind a job in coaching. That said, neither Chris Hughton nor Chris Powell were unemployed for long, so maybe there isn't a problem after all. I don't know if discrimination (either conscious or unconcious) exists or not, but John Barnes is not the only person saying it does.
I just wonder at what level he is trying...I would be amazed if he didn't get an interview at lower league clubs. As I said before, I think he's left it too long. There are so many decent managers out there with more recent experience than him. I am talking specifically about him though as I wouldn't deny it may be harder for black men to get management jobs purely on the fact that people (perhaps unknowingly) prefer someone like themselves. Without making it right, I bet this happens in Africa as well where in some countries they make decisions on tribal grounds.
Fran you always write such astoundingly good common sense, are you sure that you wouldnt like to stand for election next month and run this country for us ! ? You would get a lot of votes from this forum for a start.
I think there is (or perhaps was until recently) an old boys network in football that makes it easier for certain people to get jobs. It wasn't that long ago you would see the same four or five names linked to every Premier League vacancy (I'm thinking guys like Redknapp, Peter Reid, Curbishley, Allardyce). There aren't any black coaches/managers/ex-players in that group and that may play some part in Barnes's thinking. It's a bit of a problem but I don't think it's racism.
Are you sure that 10% of English people are black, that seems a much higher % than i imagined it would be ?
I totally agree with the fact that his record as a manager is not good and that he doesn't really merit another job. However, he is right in one respect in that there are a lot of really crap white managers who seem to get one job after another.
That may be the case, but I rather doubt it's "because they're white", more likely because they have made good connections, or they have pictures of chairmen sniffing gear off the hired help's bottoms. EDIT - I think Puck makes the same point above.
Does suggest though, that in football management as in so many other areas of life, meritocracy is a bit of a myth. It's not what you know, it's who you know, which in a roundabout way does give some credibility to John Barnes' point. If not John Barnes' point, certainly Les Ferdinands'. Ian Wright and Garth Crooks have also made observations about barriers that appear to hold back black footballers wishing to move into coaching. They can't all be imagining it can they? Sol Campbell too? (I know that last one's credibility is held to be suspect in some quarters, but still).
Well yes, I agree regarding the meritocracy point, and there likely is some residual effects still within these 'old boys networks' that exist from a time where a black individuals influence was more consciously repressed or disregarded. Networks though are of course transient. They won't go away but the members of that network will change and I'm sure better reflect the more modern multi-racial society now. In this specific instance though, I'd go so far as to suggest that due to the higher percentage of people of colour playing in football, if anything they will have a far greater chance of infiltrating such networks than perhaps in less representative professions. There's work to be done, no doubt, but Barnes isn't being offered a managerial role because he's crap. That's not in question.
I don't know the business of football, but I have a (very) vague idea of the business of music, and similar could be said regarding bosses of record labels. The boss of Island is black, but similarly with football, that will likely increase at an executive level because there's a higher percentage of international black artists - the likes of Jay-Z and Dr Dre are now making a massive (and welcome) impact at a business level.
Didn't know Island was still going strong. I knew the label was founded by Chris Blackwell, a white Jamaican. Apparently the Wailers used to call him Chris Whitewell because they never really trusted him (probably wise for any artist to distrust any industry figure, unless that figure was Tony Wilson). Blackwell brought a lot of brilliant Jamaican music to a world wide audience though. I think they should have made him an honorary Rasta for that.
