Blue Hefner
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 11 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 14,627
I had an interesting discussion with John Barnes along similar lines.
As I recall, he saw the decision-makers in the game as being subconsciously racist but in the style of in-denial Ron Atkinson-type characters - ie "I'm so obviously not a racist as I have a lot of my mates who are black" whilst at the same time mentally generalising and placing black people as being free-and-easy, laid back, and by virtue lazy buggers who could not be trusted to put a shift in and for which the idea of being given the job as "the boss" of a football team wouldn't be such a good idea.
Barnes genuinely felt that this subconscious racist stereotyping on behalf of chairmen/owners was denying black footballers the chance of even getting an interview, let alone the job.
That may have been the case 20yrs ago but I'm not sure it still exists, especially in the Premier League where there are foreign owners and decision makers
I'm not going to list all ex-black players because I'd be here all night but, I imagine a lot of them(like ex a players that are white) are loaded and not really that bothered about managing and like the easy life on TV
Do people really believe that the likes of Trevor Sinclair and Jemaine Jenas aren't getting managers job in the Premier League because of their skin colour? I'd suggest Sinclair has found his level for the moment in Lancaster and I imagine Jenas hasn't applied for any, I think he could be good as he is one of the best on the BBC
As for Yorke - I wouldn't hire him to take the bins out, never mind he manager of a football club