The Rooney rule

[General Melchett]

A sensible piece on what in my view would be a farcical bit of positive discrimination.

Bah!

 

[JKCanary]

Was reading a couple of articles of the back of that BBC one, and a couple of what I thought to be well-considered comments from last year caught my eye:

An American fan of EPL here-

Over here, this NFL rule has hardly raised any issues, and I'm sure many have accurate/inaccurate conceptions of USA race issues.
If an owner is willing to interview 4 candidates for the job, an extra interview with a 'minority' candidate is no extra problem.

If the owner isn't impressed-nobody cares. But this provides an opportunity for a 'minority' candidate to get a chance to impress and get the job.

There are no quotas where an owner has to give a job to a minority candidate- they just have to give one a chance in an interview. And I think the NFL has shown that once that door is opened and a minority candidate has a chance to convince an owner that he is a great option, sometimes old owners with historical prejudice are impressed with someone who might have worked twice as hard as any other candidate.

Again - it really isn't a big deal over here, in a place with perhaps far worse race relations than in Britain.
What is the downside to giving a minority candidate an interview? I completely fail to see the downside

Race is already an important (negative) factor in coaching career advancement. [simple statistics back this up].
There appears to be an institutional problem. And institutional problems require institutional solutions.

The real point is that the merits of people of colour are being ignored or downgraded, whether inadvertently or otherwise.

The issue is: let us consider what barriers there are to people of colour who may have merit for being recognised, and take steps to help those persons overcome the barriers and help potential employers to avoid procedures which continue or re-inforce[sic] such barriers.

The Rooney Rule may have to be modified to fit the particular context of the English Football League.
Perhaps a coaching/management mentoring scheme set-up in consultation with the PFA, together with a Rooney Rule type element to hiring back room staff, are the sort of steps which may be appropriate,

 

[DHCanary]

If institutional racism can be proven to be a problem in football then I can see a need for the Rooney rule as a way to shake things up, but just because there's few non-white managers, that doesn't mean football is racist. The average age of a Premier League manager is 50, and as most managers are ex-players, they probably reflect the player pool from 15-20 years ago, which I suspect was significantly less ethnically diverse than it is now. Few players from a particular minority means fewer qualifying as managers, and fewer making it to the upper echelons of the sport. If in 20 years time we're still seeing the numbers we are now, then it suggests there's a problem.

My other issue with the Rooney rule is the somewhat artificial definition of a minority. It seems to only be targeting ethnic minorities, why doesn't it also consider female, gay, disabled, etc candidates? Should they have to interview someone over 65 to prove there's no ageism?

 

[SUPERNORWICH 23]

I agree DH football is a results business and if a player is good enough he will be signed no matter what Suarez for example is blatantly a horrible human being but will always be in demand for his talent regardless of race or colour.
There are very few Asian players or managers so maybe they should be included in the Rooney rule?, simply giving black people a chance doesn't help other minority groups and simplifying race as just black or white seems worse to me.
We appointed Hughton because of his past record and fired him because he wasn't good enough that had nothing to do with his colour or his Irish heritage.
Ince is the one moaning all the time but if he was succesful in his role he would probably be managing a good side now.