Thats my point, if there are no candidates to offer positions to you can hardly complain when there are so few black managers.
Should the FA implement the Rooney Rule ?
- Thread starter Raoul
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Care to venture why its a questionable example exactly?
How many managers are there who havent played the game professionally? Very few so ethnic background has a huge effect on that, it might not affect their ability to manage, but it does effect them from playing the game at a high level - a pool that the vast majority of managers emerge from.
Black players in English football is a relatively new thing, go back 35 years and how many black players do you see? Its going to take time for that to filter through, its not as if they have a role model to look up to and inspire them, yet. In the mean time we need to encourage retired black players to take their badges and get into coaching, its a mental block more than anything.
In terms of making the statement, of course they should. But if they're introducing it in response to a perceived deeply ingrained racism among those who run football clubs then it's unlikely to achieve very much in the short term as those people aren't likely to suddenly decide to hire a minority candidate. It's in the long term that that could help bring about a change.
Football has been very much a classic closed shop, old boys network. A lot of it will still be about contacts and personal recommendations. In many ways it's exactly the kind of structure in which de facto racism thrives.
However very few ex-players now go straight into a manager's job at a Premier League or good Championship club. Most of them are spending time as an assistant/coach or in lower leagues first. The game in that sense is becoming more business-like about how it hires.
We are getting to the point where a Rooney rule (or whatever) might actually do something. By being forced to look at a formal interview system, there's actually more of a chance of someone who has shown potential in their first job or who has the qualifications, ideas and charisma being noticed. That's all such a rule really does - it just asks the directors to pause and think rather than latch onto a friend of a friend of someone.
However very few ex-players now go straight into a manager's job at a Premier League or good Championship club. Most of them are spending time as an assistant/coach or in lower leagues first. The game in that sense is becoming more business-like about how it hires.
We are getting to the point where a Rooney rule (or whatever) might actually do something. By being forced to look at a formal interview system, there's actually more of a chance of someone who has shown potential in their first job or who has the qualifications, ideas and charisma being noticed. That's all such a rule really does - it just asks the directors to pause and think rather than latch onto a friend of a friend of someone.
I don't see why people are so against it. Being put forward for interview on the basis of your ethnicity is not the same as being given the job on the basis of your ethnicity. If you are good enough, you will get the job, otherwise you won't...
Now I'm off before it gets stupid... or maybe it already has? I'm not going to read through to find out as people tend to talk a whole load of ignorant shite in these threads...
Now I'm off before it gets stupid... or maybe it already has? I'm not going to read through to find out as people tend to talk a whole load of ignorant shite in these threads...
Mourinho was asked about this in his press conference and said "there is no racism in football, if you are good enough, you are good enough".
Why is it that any time there's a discussion about positive discrimination there's always a post that goes to extremes like this.Of course. In 20 Premier League there should be 5 White managers, 5 Black, 5 Asian and 5 Martians.
Oh, 10 of them has to be women.
Imagine that your team gets promoted to Premier League, but you're white man so they have to sack you for that.
How would that rule work for us?
We dont ask managers to apply we go out and speak to them and there are a select few who could coach Man Utd at any given moment.
We dont ask managers to apply we go out and speak to them and there are a select few who could coach Man Utd at any given moment.
Reminds me of the whole feminist spiel about shoehorning women into the workplace in lieu of more experienced candidates, because of "diversity."
People should get a job based on how qualified they are for it. Not because they're white/black/male/female/native american/christian/atheist/etc. If a certain race, gender or what have you dominates a certain work area, it's because of happenstance. Not racism. It just so happened that the individuals qualified for that job are of that particular [something].
Shoehorning is always bad. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong. But like I said, how good you are for the job should always be the most relevant criteria.
People should get a job based on how qualified they are for it. Not because they're white/black/male/female/native american/christian/atheist/etc. If a certain race, gender or what have you dominates a certain work area, it's because of happenstance. Not racism. It just so happened that the individuals qualified for that job are of that particular [something].
Shoehorning is always bad. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong. But like I said, how good you are for the job should always be the most relevant criteria.
I wonder if Anton Ferdinand would agree with the first part of that sentence?
Why arent there more Indian or Asian managers? Terrible idea that is fundamentally racist in itself.
He probably would seeing as they have both admitted they think he is an idiot, but not racist(Terry).
It certainly demands a more formal application/interview system than you'd normally see in football. The equivalent of SAF phoning up Moyes and asking him to pop over to his house wouldn't really cut it, for example. Equally Madrid had effectively already recruited Mourinho before sacking Pellegrini. On the other hand, Mourinho apparently sent Barcelona a CV and a Powerpoint slideshow before they recruited Guardiola.
That might turn some "interviews" into farces but even there, who knows, maybe a new Assistant Manager would get recruited along the way. In fact the whole business of how a big club recruits coaches for the Academy, the reserves etc could be better for having to look at candidates rather than simply appoint them.
My own feeling is that once a good coach is working in the pro Leagues in a place where his work can bear fruit then yes, the chances are they'll stand or fall by their results. Mourinho may not think there's discrimination and at the very top I'd say that's pretty plausible - it's a results/money driven business - go down the layers and I suspect black coaches have a tougher time getting past the who knows who at the golf club mentality.
If clubs are so intrinsically racist in their appointing of new managers, why on earth would including a token black manager on the interview list mean they'll get a job?
They'll still surely still be disregarded due to racism right?
That seems the main flaw in this plan to me.
They'll still surely still be disregarded due to racism right?
That seems the main flaw in this plan to me.
No I think it's a fairly ridiculous rule. There has to be a better way of getting ethic minorities involved in the coaching/management rather than just including them on a shortlist for the sake of their skin colour. Most of the time, club's chairmen/boards have their mind made up fairly quickly about who they want, having to interview people just for the sake of it just wastes everyone's time. With this rule you run the risk of including the token *insert whatever minority* person on a list just so it pleases the FA or whatever. Something needs to be done, but for me, this is not it.
That assumes that the individuals concerned are discriminating against black people. However a system can be racist (or sexist or discriminatory in some way) even if the individuals involved are not. A couple of examples
- Large corporations are geared to support men more than women. If a couple have a child its the woman's career that is affected most, not the man's. Therefore at that key time in their career in their 30s, men get career jumps while women don't. From then onwards those men will always be more senior than women at the same age. Hence that tiny minority that make it all the way to the top are more likely to be men than women.
- To get a job in & around Westminster you pretty much need to work for free as an intern to get experience. That favours rich people as their parents can support them to live in London on no wages, while poor people's parents cannot. Hence rich people get more of those Westminster jobs.
As I said about I don't know enough about the employment of managers to say whether this is specifically the case in football. But such a systematic problem can occur.
Tell that to Malky 'not many white faces amongst that lot' Mackay.
He must be smoking then.
I watched the press conference and to be fair to Jose, he was talking specifically about managerial opportunities being rlimited by race, rather than denying that players/coaches/fans have said or done racist stuff.
There are many more than those two. In fact most of the top players don't make good managers.
So you are saying that is because of discrimination. I've always disliked jumping to conclusions like that. There are many other possible reasons for that.
It ultimately comes to delivering results. No reputation or connections will keep you on the job if you don't deliver.
The fact that a small number of PL managers can fail at one club yet keep getting managerial roles at other clubs tells you that it's all about connections and reputation.
Mourinho just said pretty much the same thing.
Just to clear something up, The Rooney Rule means all minorities not just blacks. I'm not bothered if the FA decides to implement the rule, but I really don't think it does anything aside from a PR win for the FA.
One way of looking at it is that the Rooney Rule will in theory encourage more minorities to get involved with coaching because they'd at least have the opportunity to interview for a job based on the rules forcing clubs to interview a minority candidate. It doesn't really work out that way. The US has a massive Latino population and very few Latino's get involved in coaching or football for that matter even with the Rooney Rule in place. Translate that to England, and just because the rule is in place doesn't mean an abundance of England's brown population will get involved.
Maybe I'm naive, but I'm of the belief that if you are good enough, you will get an opportunity regardless of colour. The reason why there have been a lot of black coaches in the NFL is because there have been plenty of good black coaches. The reason why there haven't been many in the Football League's is because there haven't been many good ones who were worthy of taking on bigger jobs where a lot of money is at stake.
One way of looking at it is that the Rooney Rule will in theory encourage more minorities to get involved with coaching because they'd at least have the opportunity to interview for a job based on the rules forcing clubs to interview a minority candidate. It doesn't really work out that way. The US has a massive Latino population and very few Latino's get involved in coaching or football for that matter even with the Rooney Rule in place. Translate that to England, and just because the rule is in place doesn't mean an abundance of England's brown population will get involved.
Maybe I'm naive, but I'm of the belief that if you are good enough, you will get an opportunity regardless of colour. The reason why there have been a lot of black coaches in the NFL is because there have been plenty of good black coaches. The reason why there haven't been many in the Football League's is because there haven't been many good ones who were worthy of taking on bigger jobs where a lot of money is at stake.
I'd be interested to hear how the percentage of black managers in football compares to the percentage of black managers in other industries.
And then compared to percentages of black workers overall etc.
Surely someone has put such figures together in the past
I don't have access to such stats, but the main reason for bringing up this issue is the fact that there is a discrepancy between the percentage of black players (20-30%) and black managers (1% or less). I think the main reason for that is historical. Most managers are 50-60 years old. They played their football 30-40 years ago. At that time there was a very small number of back players, so logically there is a small number of black managers now. In the future this will change, I expect in 20-30 years to have a much bigger percentage of black managers due to natural processes that will filter the current players into management.
I think forcing the Rooney rule will be counter productive. Next time a black manager is hired everyone will question if he was hired on merit, or because of the rule.
That doesn't make any sense because the rule only requires an interview.
Hard to say why it is - probably a multitude of converging reasons.
Absolutely not. Screw affirmative action.
It will still be questioned. Most players or fans are not that familiar with the fine details of the rules.
That's their problem. Surely it isn't a reason not to do it.
I think it's counter productive and degrading. Can you imagine the club president receiveing a Cv for a manager job saying "I have such and such experience and my skin is black".
There can be no denying there exists a problem regarding the dearth of black managers in the game. The Rooney rule is a measure that is taking positive action towards trying to address that. I don't see why it is so strongly opposed on here. For whatever reason, black managers are being overlooked and something has to change.
They would need to introduce a rule that means clubs have to interview candidates before being given a job before they can have one saying what race they have to be.
I doubt very few clubs will appoint a manager without some kind of formal interview, unless they were recruited internally but even then I expect it would still be commonplace.
It's not counter productive. It gives possibly overlooked candidates a chance to get noticed. How could that be counter productive?
Naive much aren't we?
I don't think there are few black managers because of discrimination but because there would have been fewer black players in the English League in the 80's and 90's as opposed to the modern era and thus the amount of black managers would reflect this. I think as the amount of black players are much greater now than before, more of them will go onto management after their playing careers are over and will result in a higher percentage of black managers in the future (if they want to go onto management that is). So I don't feel that a Rooney Rule is actually needed.