Gordon Taylor confident about PFA's black managers plan

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Blackpool manager Paul Ince

Players' union chief Gordon Taylor is convinced British football's equivalent of the "Rooney Rule" will address the lack of black managers in the game.

The Coaching Fair Play scheme aims to increase the number of qualified candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds interviewed for posts.

"No-one is telling owners who to employ," said Taylor, boss of the Professional Footballers' Association.

"It is letting them know there are people out there."

The scheme, to be promoted in conjunction with the Football League, has been compared to the "Rooney Rule" that is in operation in the United States.

That initiative - named after Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise and chairman of the NFL's diversity committee - was brought in a decade ago to ensure coaches from ethnic minorities were considered for leading positions in American football.

Cyrus Mehri, the American lawyer who helped formulate that programme, has been invited by the PFA to meet key figures in the English game this week. external-link

Football League and Premier League chairmen will decide on how the Coaching Fair Play scheme will be implemented at a later date.

Taylor said: "We need role models for black managers. In politics, they found there were not enough females in the House of Commons, so they came up with the idea of shortlists having to have women on them.

"The basic principle is the same. No-one is telling owners who to employ. It is letting them know they are people out there because, frankly, the whole process of selection with regard to managers and coaches is causing a fair amount of embarrassment."

There are five black managers in the 92-club English professional game: Chris Hughton at Norwich, Chris Powell at Charlton, Paul Ince at Blackpool, Edgar Davids at Barnet and Chris Kiwomya at Notts County.

In contrast, approximately 25% of players in the top four divisions are non-white.

"Owners have been more than happy to have black players on the pitch, but the overall figures are not in line with numbers on the pitch," Taylor added.

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  • Let us stop this racial discrimination. To do this, I propose that we force people to interview certain people for a job based on criteria. One of these criteria will be skin colour. By distinguishing candidates by skin colour we will be able to remove discrimination based on skin colour.

    You really cannot make this stuff up.

  • And never mind the best candidate for the job? I thought we'd left this behind in the 80s. So called positive discrimination is still discrimination.

  • All appointments should be made on ability and ability only not whether the candidate is a perceived shortage of a particular ethic, creed or race.

    This attitude should go across the whole spectrum of sport, politics and every walk of life.

  • There hasn't been a white 100m Sprint Olympic champion for decades. I propose a mandatory quota of non black runners must be selected for the final to help promote some level of racial balance.

  • There will never be racial harmony anywhere as long as the likes of Society for Black Lawyers, Black Police Federation etc exists. These organisations exclude their white counterparts to aren't they promoting racism? Best Man for the Job is the correct system to adopt. Clubs buy players for their skill not because of their colour, same with managers how many now are not British, forget colour?

  • 11% of the UK population is ethnic minority. If 30% of players are ethnic minority, that actually suggests that ethnic minorities are grossly over-represented on the pitch. Why is that not news?

  • Also the 30% of players being non white state versus 5/92 managers being black is stupid your comparing current players in their 20s mainly to managers who were former players in the 80s and 90s when i doubt 30% of the league was non white perhaps 5-10% were non white in the 80s and thats pretty similar to 5/92 isnt it!

  • How about a rule forcing the top three clubs (Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea) to interview an Englishman for the manager's job. When was the last time any of these top 3 clubs had an English manager? Oh wait...what was that...? There hasn't been an English manager good enough to be touted for and remain in a top 3 club job? Fancy that. And I thought it was just discrimination.

  • the percent of current black managers in the prem league is much higher than the % of black or mixed race population in the UK.

    What I want to know is what are people doing about the disproportionate number of WHITE sprinters in athletics these days. shouldn't something be done about that or are we comfortable with such an obvious difference between races?

  • Seems most on here are agreeing one way or another that this idea is morally wrong. I am glad to see that.

    Ethnic background should not even be a question on the application form.

  • Isn't the percentage of any ethnic group in football just representative of the percentage of any ethnic group that played professional football 15-20 years ago. Surely this will change naturally.

    Footballer player selection can hardly be deemed prejudiced, you only have to look at the ethnicities of domestic players.

  • My local council, Haringey, have proved emphatically over the years that employing people based on their ethnicity and not their suitability is an absolute disaster. Taylor says "No-one is telling owners who to employ,"
    Sounds like that is exactly what they are doing.

  • Let's us stop racism by being racist.

    Makes sense....

  • @ 4.SGTchilli "WHAT IS THIS !!!!! Black players union, Black managers plan, WHAT IS THAT !!!! Is this not discrimination in itself ?"

    Can you imagine what would happen if there was a white players union? It'd be deemed racist straght away.

  • Taking someones race into account when considering them for a job is wrong. It should never come into it. The only thing that should be considered is the candidates credentials for that role.

    And that works both ways.

  • You don't get it do you 277

    Normal job selection process

    1) Get applicants
    2) Sift applicants for suitability
    3) Take closer look at those that pass sift
    4) Interview best X people

    Rooney rule
    a) - Follow 1 - 3 above
    b) Select best X for interview
    c) Discard last person selected
    d) Replace with a black interviewee

    And you say that's a level playing field

    It's discrimination

  • Can also make the same point of the lack of white players in the NBA and make a film.

    Instead of white men can't jump

    How about black men can't manage? Starring paul ince and terry Connor

    But for saying that I'm probably racicst now

  • This is positive discrimination, and is racist.

  • So 5% of managers are black. I believe that approximately 5% of the English and Welsh population are black. So where is the "embarrassment" and prejudice?!

    If anything, black players are over-represented compared to the population as a whole but I am 100% fine with that because they are there on merit, the only criteria which should be used for managers as well.

  • What about a quota of English managers of any skin colour in the premier league? Or would that be racist?

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