In October 1925, a free-scoring striker named Jack Leslie, who scored over 400 goals in a glittering Preston North End club career, was called up to the England squad. Rave reports about the Jamaican-born goal machine had brought him to the attention of the national selectors, but his international call-up was cancelled after England’s selectors found out he was “a man of colour”.
If that wasn’t disgraceful enough, it wasn’t until 52 years later in 1978 that Viv Anderson broke the colour barrier and became the first black man to represent the England national side. It was at that point that the first major step towards eradicating racism from English football was taken. In 2015, it is time to take another.
Whilst the name Wayne Rooney will feature heavily in Sunday’s Manchester derby headlines, another Rooney is much more important to the future of English football: Dan. The Rooney rule needs to be implemented into England to help get rid of the inequality that still exists in the sport.
The Rooney Rule is a name given to a law in America’s National Football League (NFL) which states that every time a Head Coach job or other senior position becomes available, at least one candidate interviewed by the team with the vacancy must be from an ethnic minority background. Named after the Pittsburgh Steelers owner and head of the NFL Diversity committee Dan Rooney, who battled to have it legally introduced into the NFL, it makes interviewing one minority candidate mandatory; hiring said candidate isn’t, but it ensures that a fair chance is given to all in jobs in which they may be the best candidate.
Any form of glass ceiling that exists in any industry or walk of life in the globe today based on the colour of someone’s skin, their gender, sexual preference or anything except their talent has absolutely no place in a 21st Century world which must be an open, all-inclusive meritocracy.
It is a truly damning indictment of the football industry existing in Britain today that in the Premier League and the Football League, only six managers of the 92 in charge of professional English football clubs hail from a BME (black and minority ethnic) background.
It was just five until January when Harry Redknapp left QPR and Chris Ramsey took over at Loftus Road. The rest all manage outside of the top flight: Chris Powell (Huddersfield), Chris Hughton (Brighton), Fabio Liverani (Leyton Orient), Keith Curle (Carlisle) and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Burton).
English football is playing catch-up – a major study in late 2014 by Loughborough University’s Steven Bradbury for a Sports Think Tank revealed that although 14% of the UK population hail from BME backgrounds, only 3.4% occupy the 552 senior football jobs in the top four divisions – just nineteen men.
In a sport where the playing side is made up of over 25% of BME background players – 30% when BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnics) are included – and it is a normal career path to progress from being a player into coaching and management, the miniscule percentage of ex-players of BME backgrounds progressing into coaching roles is alarming.
Quite how England’s football team would have fared in the past 30-40 years without the illustrious names of John Barnes, Paul Ince, Des Walker, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand et. a;l. on the team sheet is anyone’s guess. Despite this, some of these same men are finding it difficult to break into the coaching and management side of the English game due to the very real and serious issue of latent, even unconscious, racism in the boardrooms of English football.
Dan Rooney has whole-heartedly endorsed a trans-Atlantic equivalent being introduced in England to ensure a level playing field for BME coaches:
“The plus side of this is you’re increasing your list of people to look at and it would really work. I couldn’t recommend it enough for the teams in Britain,” he said.
“It may take a little bit of work. But it would be a plus to the teams, to the league itself. When you think about it they have nothing to lose.”
Since its introduction into the NFL in 2003, it has worked to a spectacular degree. Pre-2003, only six Head Coaches had ever been black in 80 years of NFL history. Since 2003, that number has risen to fourteen and the percentage of African-American coaches leapt from 6% to 22% and Tony Dungy became the first African-American coach to win the Superbowl in 2006.
It is still nowhere near reflective of the fact that 68% of all American Football players in the 2014 NFL census were black and only 28% white, but it is measurable progress of the kind that England needs to match forthwith.
John Nixon, Carlisle United managing director, revealed his appointment of Keith Curle was a truly colourblind decision:
“To be honest, before I interviewed him [Keith Curle] I didn’t know he was a black manager. I interviewed him on the basis he was one of one of the guys on the shortlist.
“The Rooney Rule tends to bring in a top-down approach; ‘you will impose rules’. Talent will come through and it will work on its own.
“I assume there are not so many [BME managers] making applications.”
yet previously, Curle had applied for 43 jobs and received only three replies or interviews.
Racism still exists in British society. Fortunately, the overt type is in evidence less and less, especially in football due to the success of anti-racism movements, political correctness and education which have challenged prejudiced views. However, the hidden and unconscious types are still prevalent as old habits, attitudes and behaviour die hard.
The Rooney rule may yet ensure the mistakes of the 20th century are not repeated in the 21st.
