Kick it Out Campaign

[Chico Hamilton III]

Don't they have a "Rooney" rule in the us?

not that Rooney

[tomd2103]

Don't they have a "Rooney" rule in the us?

not that Rooney

That was one of the recent changes I was referring to Chico, though I'm not sure about the ins and outs of that particular ruling.

[Hookeysmith]

Surely by creating a seperatist group for a particular race / colour / religion defeats the whole point of equality and wanting to be treated as equal?

There will always be isolated cases of fuckwits who use racial language etc and they should be judged by the laws of the land or the organisation they operate in. This is the failure with Terry / Suarez by our FA and the failure of FIFA globally

Now if the likes of Ferdinand and Roberts cannot see the huge steps we have taken over recent years as being progress theni seriously wonder if it is more about self promoting rather than the cause.

If they have an issue with the Terry thing then come out and say it directly - dont condemn the whole "Kick it out" campaigners who have worked wonders with very little financial support from above

You cannot enforce acceptance and tolerance with a stick - it has to be through education and unity - not foreced by seperation.

[pedro25]

A better form of judgment would be to compare how many applications from black people are successful compared to other ethnic groups.  Even if this %age is significantly lower than for white applicants, this doesn't necessarily mean there is discrimination.  For example, and this is a massive over generalisation (and there are obviously plenty of exemptions to the rule) but maybe black men have the assets to make excellent players but not so good managers.  Like tall people are more suited to basketball than short people, shire horses and shetland ponies are more suited to different tasks, women and men are more suited to different tasks/jobs/roles etc etc etc.  I didn't see many black swimmers in the pool at the Olympics, is this because of discrimination/ inequality or are they just not that good/don't enjoy swimming as much.  I didn't see many people complain that swimming is racist.  In fact there are plenty of sports/jobs etc where you see a higher %age of one ethnic group, mostly either because they excel at it or enjoy it more than other groups and not because of discrimination.  This positive discrimination is no better than "normal"? discrimination in my book.

Just as an aside I find it interesting that people like Ferdinand, who presumably have one black parent and one white, get labelled/call themselves black, when they are just as white as they are black.  People are all sorts of shades, but either get labelled black or white, a bit like the North/South divide debate which overlooks the Midlands/East Anglia/West Country/Wales etc which are neither North or South.

[tomd2103]

Surely by creating a seperatist group for a particular race / colour / religion defeats the whole point of equality and wanting to be treated as equal?

There will always be isolated cases of fuckwits who use racial language etc and they should be judged by the laws of the land or the organisation they operate in. This is the failure with Terry / Suarez by our FA and the failure of FIFA globally

Now if the likes of Ferdinand and Roberts cannot see the huge steps we have taken over recent years as being progress theni seriously wonder if it is more about self promoting rather than the cause.

If they have an issue with the Terry thing then come out and say it directly - dont condemn the whole "Kick it out" campaigners who have worked wonders with very little financial support from above

You cannot enforce acceptance and tolerance with a stick - it has to be through education and unity - not foreced by seperation.

Couldn't agree more Hookey.  It is not like we are talking about apartheid era South Africa here and thankfully most of the recent incidents in football have involved a single player / fan rather than large groups.  The fact that it has been individuals as opposed to large groups should make it easier to deal with, but what I don't understand is why the FA still haven't acted in establishing some kind of set rule for such incidents.  If one was to happen this weekend, there would be just as much confusion and delay in dealing with it as there has been before.  There should be a set punishment for both players and fans, and incidents should be dealt with in the immediate aftermath of them happening.  What the punishment should be for players (fans should get a banning order - simple) is another question though.

[pedro25]

How many of those are English?

That's true

So if English managers don't get much of a sniff of the top jobs, black English managers get an even rougher deal?

What do you reckon? at least 25% of players are black? only 3 black managers in the football league.

I don't know what the reason is for such a small number but the only conclusion I can reach is that it's because they're black

That's not much of a conclusion, do you mean they're black and therefore are less inclined to go for such jobs because they'd rather do something else, or they are not as naturally gifted for such a role or they are discriminated against by white senior figures who could offer them such a role?

So if 25% of the players are black then 25% of the crowd should be black?  But it's not, are they being denied access to grounds, kicked out at the turnstiles, can they not afford it, do they not want to go?  I doubt it's due to discrimination.  Should we have 25% black tea ladies, kit men etc. or shall we just accept that we will have different %ages for each role for each ethnicity?  If there is genuine cause to investigate then fair enough, but just based on numbers I think is a bit tenuous.

[Chico Hamilton III]

So if 25% of the players are black then 25% of the crowd should be black?

Yep, that's exactly what I am trying to say...

[Risso]

Some interesting info here: http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamBlack/Black.html

[Rigadon]

It's an interesting debate and some good points well made which is often the case on this site.  I was curious after reading this thread about the current ethnicity breakdown of our population in the UK.  According to wikipedia the breakdown is 85% white british, 5% white 'other', 1.8% Indian, 1.6% Pakistani, 1.2% mixed race, 1% black caribbean, about 1% black african with the rest being made of smaller numbers (in comparison to the rest) of Bangladeshi,  Chinese and 'other' Asian.  Link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom#Ethnicity

So, the number of black managers is in line with our population stats but not with the number of black players in the game currently.  As others have said, the number of ex-players from ethnic minorities  taking their badges in comparison to the number of white ex-players doing the same would be interesting to know and could get us closer to understanding what's going on. 

Racism is such an emotive subject and I can understand why players like Ferdinand have reacted to the John Terry and Suarez cases, not to mention the abhorrent abuse Rose got in Serbia.  The Kick It Out cause seems well meaning but it's clearly felt that it's a tick box exercise by the people in the game itself.  That said, a separate union feels like the wrong thing to do to me.

[1874]

To my mind, when black managers have had an opportunity, they haven't exactly done great. Paul Ince was given a chance at Blackburn as was John Barnes at Celtic. Neither made the most of it.

But that was'nt because they were black, it's because they were poor managers.

Precisely. My point is that black managers do get the oppertunities.

[Risso]

It would be interesting to know what jobs black managers had applied for, and who got the job if they didn't.

[olaftab]

Can we stop referring to people as "black managers". There is no such identity or job. No one is managing black!

[Risso]

Can we stop referring to people as "black managers". There is no such identity or job. No one is managing black!

Er, what?  What on earth should we call managers who are black then?  "Managers who are black"?

[Legion]

How on earth could you 'manage black' anyway?

[PeterWithesShin]

How on earth could you 'manage black' anyway?

By getting them to release Wonderful Life.