England Senior Team General Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'England' started by BarryfromEastenders, Jul 18, 2017.

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  1. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Agreed!

    Also, let's be honest, what the hell has Southgate done as a manager that's got him the gig.
     
  2. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    I think it's a lot more simple than they're making it. It can't be that hard to find out the demographics of the people getting their coaching badges.
     
  3. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    That would ignore the likelihood of a feedback loop. If there's a perception that BAME badge-holders aren't going to get a fair crack of the whip, it's more likely that a prospective student from a BAME background would just think "sod this, I'll put my energies elsewhere".
     
  4. Marcho Gamgee

    Marcho Gamgee Member+

    England
    Apr 25, 2015
    Somewhere in English Arrogance land
    Club:
    Manchester City FC
    Squeaky bum time every time Wilshere goes down injured. As I'm writing he's now been taken off, hopefully with regard to England it's nothing much but this is Jack we're talking about.
     
  5. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    Another theory for which their is seemingly no supporting evidence. The FA seem to be making decisions based on what they imagine the representation should be and little else.
     
  6. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Not really, it's just common sense that a perception of reduced opportunities could be influencing application numbers from different backgrounds. You'll only pretend it's simple if you want to pretend it's simple.
     
  7. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I actually missed the incident itself at the time but, from what they said on the commentary, it was pretty innocuous. It wasn't like he was taken out at the knees as happened to KdB the other day.

    He was playing well, too.
     
  8. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    I'm not pretending anything. I don't care about representation, I care about equal opportunities. If people are forgoing an opportunity to get their badges and become a coach then that's their problem. If there's a racist culture in football standing in the way of their progress then that's something different, but thus far barely anyone even makes that claim much less is in a position to substantiate it.
     
  9. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    I was responding to your comment that it's simple to figure out whether people from BAME backgrounds are underrepresented in coaching just by looking at the demographics of the people getting their coaching badges. It isn't, because that isn't necessarily going to be the sample that employment figures are compared to.

    The larger point is that while you may not care about representation, the law does. Positive action can be legal if the person or body in question is acting out of a reasonable belief that, for example, people from a given racial background are underrepresented in coaching. See s. 159(1)(b) of the Equality Act 2010, where you can also find the other key conditions and restrictions on positive action in recruitment. In other words, the FA won't need to scrabble around for evidence of discrimination itself if they can show that they have a reasonable belief in underrepresentation.
     
  10. wellno

    wellno Member+

    Jul 31, 2016
    I'm personally against any school of thought that implies management/coaching opportunities should be doled out on the basis of the ethnic makeup of ex players because it pushes to the side the boatload of potentially great managers who never made it as players - it's very much a different skillset. That isn't a point relevant to this Rooney Rule discussion, but something I wanted to say anyway.

    And while I'm moaning - BAME isn't a great term to use in this context given pretty much every ex player you're talking about falls under the B (and the term itself is silly because the B falls under the ME). Black ex pros not getting into coaching and people from other ethnic minorities not getting into the sport full stop are two separate issues.
     
    ChristianSur repped this.
  11. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    Yes, but they can't. Though if for the sake of argument we accept that they can, I can't wait to hear about their nationwide drive to get more White people into professional football, what with them being so under-represented and all.
     
  12. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Why are you so sure? They don't have to adopt the demographics of badge-holders as the benchmark for proportionate representation, as you would. There's a huge number of possible definitions that they could use instead, and they only have to show reasonable belief, not mount an unarguable case.

    Even if they could get that through the legislation (s. 159(4) looks tricky to me), what reason can you imagine the FA giving for choosing to use positive action in that way? It is a choice, remember - nobody is ever obliged to attempt it.
     
  13. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    Well they wouldn't, because there's no political pressure to. That's the point. None of this has anything to do with the FA caring about discrimination or even representation directly, it's about being seen to do something to get the activists and the media and the negative PR off their backs, even if it means instituting overtly racist policies to do so.
     
  14. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Does anyone believe that white footballers, in an industry dominated by white coaches, managers, board members, and chairmen, are being discriminated against? Does anyone believe that white kids are reluctant to enter that industry because they're not convinced that they'll be judged on their merits rather than their skin colour?
     
    thebigman repped this.
  15. BarryfromEastenders

    Staff Member

    Jul 6, 2008
    They are only doing the Rooney rule thing to cover for the complete screw up they made of the Aluko case. They all should have been booted because of that. If they really believed this is the way to go they would have done it much earlier.

    The FA have in my view actually done well at appointing black coaches into the setup. I don't have an issue with it being implemented but it seems to be primarily a PR exercise.
     
  16. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    I'm not interested in unsubstantiated social theory, and neither should the FA be. There's a mountain of data they might have collected to try and help justify this that they seemingly had no interest in. Why? Because this is political, it's about perception. For them whether it's right or even pragmatic is apparently neither here nor there.
     
  17. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Common sense would tell you that there won't be a mountain of direct evidence of discrimination. Short of internal documents saying "get me the best white man for the job" (which, even if that wasn't such an absurd proposition, would not be in the hands of The FA without chronic whistleblowing), and short of the ability to read the minds of decision-makers, all that can be left is a few personal anecdotes *and the figures for representation*. The FA clearly appears to have sought out the types of evidence that would realistically be available, but you're still not interested, which seems to me to reflect more on your political angle than theirs.

    I grant you that the superficial representation figures that occasionally get quoted in articles (e.g. 460/482 coaches in England's top four leagues being white, which is usually then compared to the make-up of current players and/or the whole country) don't instantly allow you to say whether there's an issue with underrepresentation and what the issue is. That would require a much more complex analysis to divide the figures up into, e.g., long-term-English-based coaches who came from a professional playing career, long-term-English-based coaches who had no substantial playing career, Foreign coaches whose native background The FA self-evidently has no obligation to concern itself with representing, and so on. Each category would need to be compared to the demographics of that subsection of society, which is not a simple thing to establish in itself. It would also need to be broken down further than effectively "white people" and "everyone else" because, as wellno says, there are different putative issues affecting different ethnic groups.

    What you would end up with would be figures to show, as accurately as possible, that certain groups either were or were not proportionately represented in English coaching by comparison with a reasonable expectation. At that point, you could use a further comparison with the demographics of badge-holders to try to break down any underrepresentation that you'd found further into self-deselection (for all possible reasons) and proportionate levels of success of those who have pursued a coaching career (which again has numerous possible factors, including direct and indirect discrimination). Whatever split that last step showed, it's perfectly reasonable for The FA to concern themselves with making the English coaching industry a more welcoming and attractive environment for potential coaches from all backgrounds, as well as doing what they can to police ongoing discrimination within it. It also wouldn't have any impact on whether the rule was legal, provided that they'd shown a reasonable argument for their belief in underrepresentation as a whole.

    To take it back to the question of legality, I would expect (but can't know) that the courts would have no issue with the Rooney Rule provided that The FA had data that raised the possibility of underrepresentation, which even at a glance they appear to have. The sticking point, if there was going to be one, might be whether it was a "proportionate" measure, i.e. there was no less onerous measure that would achieve the same goal. If anyone wants to suggest one that would achieve the same goal and that they'd find less bafflingly infuriating, please go ahead, but it seems that you take issue with the goal itself so I won't expect it.
     
  18. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    Is it possible to substantiate this assertion? Because the type of information you've gone on to detail is exactly what I called on them to collect earlier in this thread. Why you're convinced that they've already done this work or that I'm not interested in it I'm not quite sure.
     
  19. ChristianSur

    ChristianSur Member+

    May 5, 2015
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    I guess that must have been a good while ago? I can't find it. All you've specified during this conversation is that they should look at the demographics of badge-holders. You replied to my suggestion that they might look at more than the demographics of badge-holders with "I'm not interested in representation". I don't know what I should have understood by that, if not that you were uninterested in the figures for representation.

    I shouldn't have said that they'd sought out that kind of evidence, i.e. figures for representation and/or anecdotes. Certainly figures for representation have been published by campaign organisations like the SPTT and picked up on by mainstream news sources, so the FA will have seen them one way or another. It seems improbable that they didn't at any point look at them purposefully, but it's possible. The FA have also published anecdotal accounts from the likes of Paul Elliott.

    What they may or may not have is the information that I suggested would give them a more realistic benchmark for what the representation figures would be if race was not a factor at all - not the only reasonable method by any means, but in my opinion preferable to just looking at player demographics or the general population. But again, you're "not interested in representation", so why would that adjusted benchmark make any difference to you? I can only assume I've misunderstood your position.
     
  20. Jenks

    Jenks Member+

    Feb 16, 2013
    Club:
    --other--
    I said I care about equal opportunities not representation because representation is not in itself a problem, but that doesn't mean it can't be a symptom of a problem. The absolute bare minimum the FA should have done is collect and publish the racial demographics of coaches getting their badges versus coaches being employed in the English game to see if those numbers suggest any kind of discrimination. I don't think the perceived lack of opportunities in the black community - assuming it exists in a broad sense - is reason enough for the FA to step in and institute patently racist policies to correct a problem that might not even exist. It could easily do more harm than good.
     
  21. itfcjoe

    itfcjoe Member+

    Oct 8, 2014
    Club:
    Ipswich Town FC
    Numerous black ex-pros have come out and said they haven't done their badges because there is no point as they won't get a job at the end of it because they are black - whether or not that is true, or if it is just a perceived slight it still affects the %age of badgeholders that are black so it isn't as simple as looking at badgeholders compared to jobs.
     
  22. dbs235

    dbs235 Member

    Mar 30, 2013
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Clearly I'm naive but I just can't believe that clubs in England would still be institutionally racist. The players and coaching staff are from all over the world. How many of them are even owned by the typical "70 year old, white male" anymore? When you have Malaysian owners and an Argentinian manager with French assistant manager with about 20 black first team players etc why would it make any sense to not hire a coach who's black?
     
    W.A.S.P., Jenks and hussar repped this.
  23. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    If you think about it there must be literally thousands of ex-players so the proportions of guys that are going to get a job are inevitably small.

    But isn't it also a matter of black English players not thinking they'd get a look-in because they're English?

    I think you'll find, if you look at the managers that get spoken of as contenders when jobs come up, particularly for the top clubs, the proportion of them that are English is actually quite low compared to other countries.

    TBH, when you think of the likelihood of a young English manager getting the job of managing Chelsea, ManU or citeh nowadays, it's pretty low... they've probably got more chance of managing England than that.

    So if you're English AND you're black, I can understand their reluctance, tbh :(
     
  24. wellno

    wellno Member+

    Jul 31, 2016
    It's very simplistic to think that institutional racism is gone from football just because a foreign guy can buy a British asset and then hire another foreign guy from a different country to manage it (and all the management level foreign guys are white, by the by) who then hires non white frontline staff. Some of these owners come from countries with very retrograde attitudes to race, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them shared such views.

    Malky Mackay has had non white players on his teams but I think we all know what his views are on the subject. Just because someone employs you doesn't mean he respects you.
     
  25. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Some of the far-east countries have got some of the most racist, (anti black and afro-Caribbean peoples, in particular), around. The idea THEY'RE not necessarily racist is for the birds.

    But extending that to say there is institutional racism across the board in football and it's proven by the fact there aren't enough black and afro-Caribbean managers, (who are likely to have to be English which is ITSELF an issue), seems something of a stretch.
     

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