Young, Gifted & Black: Black Managers and the Rooney Rule

On April 13th 2017, Daniel Milton Rooney, the former United States ambassador to Ireland, passed away in his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This man is probably the most unlikely figure to be such, but he may just turn out to be a key figure in the turning point for the chase of equality for black coaches in English football. This is because in his role as Pittsburgh Steelers owner (following on from his father Art Rooney - both no relation to Wayne), he enacted a rule which ensured that in interviews for Head Coach positions, at least one ‘minority’ (what is now termed in the UK as BAME – Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) coach must also be interviewed. This policy was enacted across the NFL in 2003, and with positive results: within just 3 years, the percentage of African-American coaches in the NFL had jumped from 6% in 2003 to 22% in 2006. The Steelers themselves employed their first African-American Head Coach, Mike Tomlin, in 2007, who has gone on to reach 7 post-seasons in 9 years, including winning Super Bowl XLIII. Due to the success of this, many coaches, pundits, and activists have been calling for The FA to bring this rule into English football. Everyone can support the sentiment behind enacting such a policy, however, do the differences between the systems used by the NFL and English football present a barrier to this policy being of any practical use?

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, one of four BAME managers currently in the Football League, currently at Northampton Town

Firstly, an investigation into the problem at hand. At the time of writing, there is one BAME manager in the Premier League, Chris Hughton at Brighton, with four more in the Football League: Keith Curle (Carlisle), Nuno Espirito Santo (Wolves), Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Northampton) and Jack Lester (Chesterfield). Five clubs of the 92, or 5.4%. To put this into context, the 2011 Census says that 12.9% of the UK population is identified as BAME; the BBC in 2015 estimated that about 25% of players in the top four divisions were BAME; and in the 23-man England Squad called up for the game against Brazil in November contained 11 BAME players. It is clear from those numbers that, unlike in the 1970s and 80s, there is no obvious discrimination against Black players in the Football League or from the FA. However, that’s the players; the first stat on Hughton and co. suggests that discrimination is very much plausible.

I say plausible, because as a football fanatic, I want to give the game I love the benefit of the doubt; to believe that it is no longer an institutionally racist one. So first, a look into possible explanations of other possible causes. Firstly, at the elite level, the much-maligned struggle for English managers may have an impact on those who are Black and English. The current crop of elite manager in the Premier League – Conte, Guardiola, Klopp – all played the majority of their careers in the 1990s. According to the book Soccernomics’s research, about 10% of players in the Football League in the early 1990s were black, and of these, about 90% were British born. In comparison, 95% of white players were British born. At the time of writing, nine of 20 Premier League managers are British born. Hughton being the only one of nine to be BAME works out to about the ratio of the number of black British born players compared to British players all together in the early 1990s, with Hughton himself retiring as a player in 1993. This, admittedly ropey maths, suggests that the number of Black managers may not be as far off the mark as we think, and that as the number of Black players has increased in recent years, in a couple of decades the pattern in management will follow this. Indeed, for black managers, the real precedent is, almost unsurprisingly, a foreign manager. Whilst Hughton has found success in winning promotions for both Newcastle and now Brighton, the only Black manager to have ever won a major honour in England is Ruud Gullit at Chelsea, with the FA Cup in 1997. Indeed, of the five BAME managers in current Football League management, two are from abroad. This again suggests that Black British managers are just feeling the disadvantage at the top level that all British managers are.

                However, it must be said that there are many counter-arguments to this point. One example of this is the case of Eddie Newton. He said in an interview with the Evening Standard earlier this year that he felt that a lack of Black managers has held him back. He is certainly a coach with pedigree, having been Roberto Di Matteo’s assistant at MK Dons, West Brom, and at Chelsea, where he won the FA Cup and Champions League in 2012. Currently, he remains at Chelsea, in a unique role in control of keeping tabs on the 34 players loaned out of the club, scattered across Europe. Newton has some gravitas to his claims of discrimination, as to compare him to another ex-Chelsea assistant manager, as well as a teammate of that mid-1990s Chelsea side, Steve Clarke. After spells as assistant at Newcastle, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool, Clarke’s first job in the main hot seat was at West Brom in the Premier League. After being sacked there, he then got a job in the Championship with Reading, before moving to his current job north of the border at Kilmarnock. Now, Newton states himself he wants a No 1 job, and whilst there is no way to tell which jobs he has been applying for (many young British managers have been criticised for not being willing to take a step down to get a job and prove themselves), but if he was being rejected by lower league (ie Leagues 1 & 2) clubs, this would very much suggest discrimination. Many managers have got multiple jobs with lesser CVs; for example, the late Dermot Drummy, the well-respected ex-Chelsea academy coach and a former colleague of Newton’s, was given the Crawley Town manager’s role in April 2016, staying there until May 2017. There is no doubt that job is one Eddie Newton could have done just as good a job the same level as a club like Crawley.

Another plausible explanation is the number of high profile black ex-players who have, rather than go into coaching or management, have gone into punditry. Now, again, without doing a mass survey of these guys, it isn’t possible to say that they chose to go into punditry but were forced into it by being rejected by clubs. There are 13 black players to have received 20 caps for England and now be retired, here’s a list of what they are up to now:

• Rio Ferdinand (81 caps) – pundit with BT Sport; no permanent coaching job
• John Barnes (79) – pundit with various channels; previously managed at Celtic, Jamaica and Tranmere Rovers, the latter his last job in 2009
• Sol Campbell (73) – currently out of the game, last seen attempting to become the Conservative party’s candidate for the 2016 London mayoral election
• Emile Heskey (62) – did some coaching whilst at Bolton, also became an ambassador at Leicester after their title win
• Des Walker (59) – currently a coach with the Derby County academy
• Paul Ince (53) – currently a pundit for the BBC; previously managed at Macclesfield, MK Dons (twice), Blackburn, Notts County and Blackpool; actively looking to get back into management
• David James (53) – pundit at BT Sport; player-manager at Kerala Blasters in India, player-coach at IBV in Iceland, also coached at Luton Town
• Ian Wright (33) – pundit at the BBC and BT Sport; coach at MK Dons in 2012 but left in 2013, no coaching job since
• Kieron Dyer (33) – coach at the Ipswich Town academy
• Viv Anderson (30) – left the game in 2001 after being Bryan Robson’s assistant at Middlesbrough, had also been player-manager at Barnsley in 1994
• Darius Vassell (22) – currently a coach at the Wolves academy
• Ledley King (21) – currently an ambassador for Tottenham whilst taking his coaching badges
• Jermaine Jenas (21) – currently a pundit for the BBC and BT Sport; no permanent coaching job

It speaks volumes that as the revolving door of management increases pace, the two players who retired the most recently, Jenas and Ferdinand, have both chosen punditry as opposed to coaching to go into, with far more job security. As well as this, John Barnes has mentioned he has been put off returns to management after his experiences with Celtic and Tranmere, as well as Ian Wright mentioning that due to what he has seen friends go through in management has put him off taking that path and that he prefers the comfort of Match Of The Day. However, this is a common trend with English players of all races, with Gary Neville having stated he doesn’t wish to go into management again after his experience as coach with England and manager at Valencia, as well as Jamie Carragher saying he’s reluctant to go into management after seeing his fellow Monday Night Football pundit’s experiences. Indeed, the only person on the above list who has indicated he is seeking a management job in the immediate future is Paul Ince. Could it be that perhaps, with a currently smaller pool of talent to draw upon, the situation with ex-players preferring punditry over management or coaching makes the black ex-player situation look worse?

Nuno Espirito Santo, one of four BAME managers in the Football League, upon his unveiling as Wolves manager

To conclude, it's clear that football still has issues with race. The terraces aren’t as awful as they were thirty years ago, but by no means are they perfect – racist chanting is thankfully extremely rare, but still happens on occasion. While the playing staff get more diverse in nationality and skin tone, season ticket holders in the Premier League are disproportionately white. The Asian community in Britain are shamefully underrepresented in the Football League as players, coaches and match-going fans. And, when we take people like Sol Campbell and Eddie Newton’s personal experience, they clearly believe that racism has been at least a factor, so who am I to deny that? Yet it’s also clear that as the narrative surrounds the black ex-players who are British, they