Coaching Fair Play Scheme (Rooney Rule)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22194042

Essentially, it's more racism against white people. Ethnic minorities will now have to be interviewed. The BBC writes: "The Coaching Fair Play scheme aims to increase the number of qualified candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds interviewed for posts."

According to the PFA, 18% of players on their coaching courses are black or from other ethnic minorities. According to the 2001 census, the amount of White British people in this country totalled 85% (probably gone down since then) so I don't see how that's disproportionate. If anything it's disproportionate to white people. Equally, the BBC says: "approximately 30% of players in the top four divisions are non-white" which surely means white people are under represented on a football field?

Disgusting. Positive discrimination once again.

While I agree with positive discrimination in some aspects, I think in this aspect the FA have been a little silly.

When so many managers and coaches are ex-players, it's obviously going to take a while for the amount of black coaches/managers to get to the same level as the number of black players. I imagine if you look at how many black players were in the top four 10 years ago, I bet 18% would be about right. The amount of black coaches and managers simply reflects what the players were 10 years ago.

It's not needed. Not that it will have much of an effect I imagine. We'll still see the same managers being employed.

That article misses out a big point about the Rooney Rule that all my fellow American football fans will know. Teams can hire whoever they like just as long as ONE interview is given to a minority.

It's well intentioned but flawed and can be easily manipulated so someone who doesn't want to hire a minority can just hand out an interview as a going through motions act.

It's also been called out recently by former black NFL coaches who think it should be altered to give minorities better chance of actually being hired. This offseason two head coaches and a GM who were all black were fired and replaced by white men. There were 13 job openings all together (8 HC & 5 GM positions) all filled by white men.

It's just an aesthetic thing. Like when they said gays can marry in churches, but every church in the country can legally refuse them.

Also don't make out like any white managers or coaches will be affected by this rule, the clubs are perfectly within their rights to interview 100 white men as long as they interview just one ethnic minority and then there is no way of governing who they employ.

Right now, the NBA have a lot more black managers than they used to...so the Rooney Rule is working there!
In the NBA, about 40% of their coaches are black. It is clear that more decisive action needs to be taken in the NFL, since more than half of the players are black. We can't just accept covert racism in the US and the UK - we have to tackle it.

The Rooney Rule is needed here in England, simply because although about 25% of players are from a BME background, less than 10 out of 92 managers in the English League system, from the Premiership down to Division Two, are from a BME background.

That just goes to show that English clubs are happy to have black men to play for them, but don't want to promote them to managerial positions. It is covert racism....

The Americans had to address this covert racism among their owners by forcing them into the 21st century, and now the face of coaching better resembles the faces of the players in the NBA.

England is always slow to recognise their own problems with racism....

How many black managers are there in the Premier League? Just one...Chris Ramsey at QPR. That's an unacceptable situation, and smacks of the racism that pervades the ownership structure in English football.

Right now, English football is pretending they don't have a problem. At least the US are trying to tackle it.

There are no black football managers in the Premier League. There are no white football managers in the Premier League.

There are only football managers, and the colour of their skin has no bearing on this.

Defining people by their skin colour - for instance, saying Chris Powell of Huddersfield is a black football manager - is disparaging and patronising.

Positive discrimination is pure backward logic that works on the principle that you can defeat discrimination by discriminating.

Duty281 wrote:There are only football managers, and the colour of their skin has no bearing on this.

All the Rooney rule does is make sure people in charge think about a wider variety of people as potential football managers. It's not about forcing people on to the sidelines, it's about forcing them in to the conversations so they have as much chance of being heard as anyone else.

I don't really see why it matters because there are only 5 black managers in football. That's hardly something to discriminate or be bothered about is it. Its not like someone has racially abused someone because there are only 5 black managers in professional football, big deal. Why are the FA trying to sort out a problem that doesn't need fixing when there are other major problems such as grass roots football, England's youth team etc to sort out first and before hand?

Lowlandbrit wrote:

Duty281 wrote:There are only football managers, and the colour of their skin has no bearing on this.

All the Rooney rule does is make sure people in charge think about a wider variety of people as potential football managers. It's not about forcing people on to the sidelines, it's about forcing them in to the conversations so they have as much chance of being heard as anyone else.

Is there any evidence that managers, or rather, potential managers with dark skin are not getting a fair crack of the whip - i.e. not getting interviews, not getting past certain stages of the application process?

Duty281 wrote:Is there any evidence that managers, or rather, potential managers with dark skin are not getting a fair crack of the whip - i.e. not getting interviews, not getting past certain stages of the application process?

In most cases there barely seems to be any real process to speak of. Teams fire their manager, then go get the person they have in mind, almost always one of the same old list of (almost exclusively white) usual suspects.

Lowlandbrit wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Is there any evidence that managers, or rather, potential managers with dark skin are not getting a fair crack of the whip - i.e. not getting interviews, not getting past certain stages of the application process?

In most cases there barely seems to be any real process to speak of. Teams fire their manager, then go get the person they have in mind, almost always one of the same old list of (almost exclusively white) usual suspects.

Herein lies the biggest issue with the Rooney Rule.

Teams will hire their best candidate, the Rooney doesn't do anything to address that.

I think the rule would prove useful. With so few BME managers in the UK, a guaranteed interview for one of them for each managerial role will mean that there would be a semi-career in attending job interviews alone.

I don't normally like stuff like this (Positive discrimination is still discrimination) but don't really see the harm in giving an interview. We know how football is run and they'll already have in mind who they want anyway.

I'd rather see a rule whereby an internal candidate is given an interview. Would give even more credence to getting your qualifications and working hard within a club.

Why not simply hire the best person for the job?  

Having any sort of "policy" however, is fraught with all sorts of problems where minorities are concerned.  Coloured people, women, gays, whoever.... once you start allocating quotas you invite applications from people who simply wouldn't be any good.  

To then reject their applications on the very grounds that they're just not good enough would most likely lead to allegations of only paying lip service to minorities.

The ideal situation would be to give a high profile job to a female, black lesbian who then turns out to be very good at her job and enjoys considerable success on her merits.  The ideal scenario, isn't it..?

Oh no..... thinking about it, that wouldn't work either.... would it, Hope Powell....?

'About 25% of players in the Premier League and Football League are black. Based on current figures, about 6.5% of managers in the top four divisions - or six in 92 - are black. As for coaches, well, that's an even sorrier tale. A recent study claimed that of 552 key coaching jobs in English football, 19 were occupied by people from black and ethnic backgrounds. Football Association board member Heather Rabbatts said it was further evidence "that bodies across the game need to work together to challenge discrimination", while Sports Minister Helen Grant said the findings of a Think Tank were both "appalling and worrying".'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31970841