I don't know. Could be many factors. If we are talking about

the ratio of black inhabitants of the UK vs black professional football managers, maybe.

But you'd have to go deeper into that. First of all the number of British black professional footballers versus the number of British football managers (more and more foreign managers coming in at all levels).

(I know not all managers had a professional career but the Mourinhos, AVBs and Svens are few and far between in the greater scheme of things)

Then a bit further back - since managers now played professionally a number of years ago. So compare the number of British black managers now to the number of British black professional footballers a number of years ago.

And then don't forget that racism was undeniably more prevalent in the 70s and 80s, maybe even early 90s and therefore a lot of the players from then who might be managers now might have either not got their first chance because of previous racism, or had experienced so much racism that the mere thought that they COULD be a manager simply didn't cross their minds, and therefore didn't attempt it.

I think it will take a while but in 10 years time I'd like to think we would see a more representative number.

However, going back to the foreign manager thing. You can really only start using any statistics on the ratio of British managers. If you want to talk about a ratio of all the managers in British professional football then you have to factor in all the above cultural and environmental factors from each and every country they come from and worked in. I think the ratio of French black players to managers is very low for example, and the same with the Dutch. But I would not like to judge the French as I don't know why that might be. For the Dutch, it is probably a combination of things one of which is a form of racism - the Dutch national teams in the past often seemed to have a schism between the black Surinaams background players and the white players - and the memories of Edgar Davids throwing a wobbly in 96 for example still echo around with the "other camp" - Koeman, De Boer, Blind, etc and the managers of the time - Advokaat van Gaal, Hiddink, Adriaanse etc forming the largest part of the network of managers in NL today. And now you see people like Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Philip Cocu also in managerial or executive roles. I think in NL it will change soon as that schism is less and less likely with most of the black Dutch players now having been born in NL and considering themselves Dutch. Twenty years ago a lot of them were actually born in Suriname (left to NL during the chaos of independence in 75 I think), so felt more Surinaams or South American than Dutch and that contributed to the division.

I think it is difficult to say. Of course I would also be stunned if of the 92 clubs hiring managers in England, there were not a few who have Chief Execs or other decision making board members who are racist. Probably not in a race hatred way, but more in that old school way many of our parents probably are. (For example a senior member of my family thought Obama was an amazing man because he managed to become president despite all his obvious handicaps...).

And of course then you look at Africa. Obviously the majority of the world's black professional footballers are African, but the percentage of those who go on to play at a high level (i.e. top leagues in Europe) is tiny. And even most of those are playing in s**t leagues (e.g. Belgian 2nd division). The rest are playing and being coached at such a low level that they aren't learning the knowledge they need to be a good coach or manager. So again, you wouldn't expect a high number of African managers in England. Even in Africa it seems half the national teams hire European coaches for the same reasons.

Fuck me that was long. I really must get a job soon!

Posted By: Steve in Holland on November 5th 2015 at 14:22:27

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in