Anyone else notice that Chris Powell was invited to the Prime Minister's seminar on football racism today? See the link from the Daily Mail -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104889/ITV-forced-apologise-reporter-PMs-football-racism-summit-calls-black-players-coloured.html(Sorry about the link using this paper but can't find the story anywhere else)
An important issue undoubtedly. But after last night's disappointing performance I do wonder whether it might have been better for SCP to have been at the training ground this morning shoring things up for what looks a very tricky game on Saturday rather than at something that I suspect will just be a talking shop?
Comments
Is that what he means by ONE AIM, a day off?
That's nowt, t' Prime Minista is eur massi' Wednesday fan li' orl t' top blokes 'cos wea'ar fookin' massi'. Megson pops aroun' everee Tuesday for barmcakes 'n ta advise dev on economic policy.
Also pleased that something is being done, albeit that like all politicians Cameron is milking the publicity.
Paul Elliot and Mark Bright were also there.
I'm sure Alex Dyer is capable enough to look after the reserves for a game and report back on Alonso etc performance
Yes We Can...
" Your country needs you !"
It was a PR stunt. Was anything practical achieved, other than good publicity for the Tories? The issue of racism in football is an important one. But you'd have thought the PM would have had more pressing matters of state to attend to. Bu then that wouldn't have got him so many favourable column inches or a photo op with John Barnes...
The real step forward is the people I was working with on the Tackling Homophobia group at the FA four or five years ago are now getting the ear of club managers, ministers and senior FA officials. The issue is being discussed in the general media as well.
Long way to go but good news regardless and especially that the Charlton manager, who was formally a trade union boss, was involved
I mean, We know that Birmingham and us are likely not to be racist in our recruitment policies, but the same must apply to MK Dons, Lincoln, Macclesfield etc... We must remember that a club can only have one manager at a time and every club who has appointed a black one in recent times needs to be removed from the accusations.
Ok, then you do need to ask the question to the other clubs. The fact that they haven't appointed a black manager doesn't mean they are racist of course, but some of them could be - knowingly or more likely unwittingly. Try to positively challenge and help these clubs by all means.
But there are other factors too - You don't get many English managers in the Premiership. And if you are going to have a foreign manager he is unlikely to be black, look at the African national teams and see how many non black managers they have. It is something to do with the football caoching infrastructure in these countries.
Then you have a proportion of clubs who try to bring in a manager who has shown he can bring success, so these managers will come from the existing pool which isn't full of proven black managers. So Paul Ince who had some success and some failures- as many managers do was seen as appealing to clubs because he has shown he can be successful and is still linked to jobs and will no doubt get offered one shortly. He has got noticed and his foot in teh door. It is harder for any inexperienced manager- black or white to get a job or a manager who has not had success with his chance and these managers tend to have to start down the ladder and try to get noticed. If Chrissy keeps his current levels of success up, he will be in demand- I believe, the overhelming motivation for clubs appointing a manager is success and nothing else.
I suspect we think, thank heavens Chrissy loves the club so will be more likely to resist approaches should he continue to be successful. I doubt many of us are thinking, fortunately he is black so no clubs will be interested in him if he does well for us. That is telling, it means we don't really believe that the manager's race is the key factor.
Personally, I think over the next 10 years or so we will see a significant increase in the numbers of black managers but these things can take time.
BC later rang Kinnock to apologise, claiming he was detained by transfer negotiations. I can't even remember who he was trying to sign. But I lost all respect for him after that.
What was more important, FFS - defeating Thatcher or a new Forest reserve keeper,or whatever the poxy signing was...
The only thing Cameron is worried about is pulling in the 'Black' and 'gay' vote .. like most politicos, he'll say, promise and then renege on ANYthing to get a few more months in the driving seat