Obviously race is always a difficult issue to discuss but wight he sacking of Chris Powell, Hughton becomes the only black manager, infact I'm pretty sure he's the only non-white manager, in the Football League. In the press conference on thursday Hughton spoke a bit about his disappointment at this lack of diversity, here. The question i have is should football be looking to introduce something like the Rooney Rule that is used in NFL in the states where a minority candidate must be interviewed for all Head coach positions. Theres no requirement of hiring these candidates once they interview but the number of minority coaches has risen significantly in the NFL.
Always a tricky and often a sensitive subject.............and the bottom line is only the best candidate gets the job. To that end, the 'Rooney Rule' appears fair enough in practice. Of course that is assuming there actually are former black players that want to become managers/coaches. I get a annoyed with politicians who believe that must employ a person from an ethnic minority to make up the numbers or fulfill a quota. There are certain vocations in life where this is should never happen and football, with all that money involved in the PL, to my mind is one of them. A club cannot afford to offer the managers job to make up numbers, it's a hard enough decision to make as it is without adding another dimension.
I entirely agree Thai, clubs shouldn't have to employ a candidate who isn't right for the job but there's nothing about being black that means that inherently means you would be a poor manager. Diversity quotas force things a develop an underlines animosity to women and black candidates getting jobs, the "she only got that job because she's filling a quota" attitude. I like the Rooney Rule as it just forces people to consider candidates they might not have otherwise have done and this has shown a good improvement in hiring just by being allowed to interview and present themselves.
