Reporting Sports in a refreshing style

Barnes blasts ‘unconscious bias against black managers in football’

Liverpool legend, John Barnes, believes there still exists a significant problem in football about the treatment of black managers in football.

Earlier this week and in light of the Black Lives Matter movement, Raheem Sterling claimed racism is “the only disease right now”.

The Manchester City star also questioned the number of opportunities afforded to BAME managers in the game, using Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole as examples. Sterling argued they had not been offered the same chance as their peers Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.

Now Barnes has shared his thoughts on the unconscious bias that surrounds black managers football. He believes there is a stigma that is more damaging to the game than the obvious racism from supporters that we see in the terraces.

“I managed at Celtic in 1999 and Tranmere in 2008, nothing has changed in that time,” Barnes told BonusCodeBets.

“We’re just pretending this is just something new, that black managers can’t get jobs. Nothing has changed. I don’t think, as a society, we have changed our perception as to whether a black manager is capable of being a good manager, we must change it in society.

“Here’s a question. Can a black man make a good manager? That question in itself is a racist question, I’ll tell you why, because it presupposes that there’s a possibility that a black man can’t be a good manager, because he is black.

When people answer that question, a lot of people say ‘Well, I don’t know.’ ‘I don’t know’ is a racist answer. Because if I ask somebody, ‘Can a man jump out of a plane without a parachute, and fly?’ The answer is no, because he knows 100% that he can’t. If he said, ‘I don’t know’. He in his mind would think, yes, there’s a possibility that he would fly but he can’t, so he would say ‘I don’t know’.

read also:Barnes, Vardy doubles put Iheanacho’s Leicester back on track

“So, with ‘I don’t know’, it means that in your own mind, you think there’s a possibility, that a black man cannot be a good manager because he is black. And that’s a problem. Society isn’t sure, which then shows that they do have a perception in their mind, that it is a possibility a black man could not be a good manager. So that’s obviously racist.

“But it shows the unconscious bias that people have, that stops not just black managers, but black people getting on in life. The unconscious bias affects not just black people negatively, it also affects women. Can a woman be a good manager, we don’t know? Can a gay person fight in a war, we’re not sure? Why aren’t we sure?

“It then shows that we have a bias in relation to whether we believe they can do that job. And it’s not just the real racist, who have that opinion, the most articulate opinion, and that is the biggest problem in football. Not the obvious racists or the obvious racism towards black players or black managers, it’s everybody. “

You might also like

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.