I have a theory, and its based on the premise that i don’t believe the majority of English chairmen are racists.
However, i think there are probably subconscious levels of racism occurring. Ill try to explain what i mean.
A lot of black people and white people grow up separately from each other. And i would imagine this is especially true for black footballers who are probably predominantly from black working class communities. Therefore they grow up with other black children, and pick up their own unique behaviours and cultural subtleties. And these traits stay with them into adulthood.
Most chairmen are white. And therefore have their own particular behavioural traits, as a result of having grown up in a different environment to black players for example.
The problem for black players looking to get employed by these white chairmen is that, i think on a subconscious level, these chairmen interpret some of the characteristics of ex-black players as unsuitable for management.
Ie. let’s compare two similar players in rio ferdinnd and john terry. I think a lot of chairmen will interpret RF’s voice, attitude and personality as unsuitable for someone in a management position. Simply because it is something that they aren’t used to. And something that they haven’t seen in management positions in general. Whilst JT on the other hand would be considered the more prototypical leadership-material. Rightly or wrongly, i think many chairmen would consider JT to be well spoken, tactically-aware, and his general demeanour would be a lot more comparable to what they are used to from people in management roles.
I think similar comparisons can be made between ian wright/bergkamp, defoe/bent/keane, andy cole/ole gunnar s, Ashley cole/gary Neville, heskey/owen/shearer etc
When rio ferdiand or heskey do their DJ celebrations, or balotelli goes on one of his antics, andy cole produces a rap, frimpong goes around shouting dench etc, i think all of these kind of behavioural traits are unfairly viewed negatively by many chairmen when considering these guys for management positions (subconsciously). <personally, i think these are just behavioural traits from having grown up in black working class communities, and do/mean no harm. If anything, it shows charisma imo>
On the other hand, the negative behaviour and conduct of players like Tony Adams (drugs/alcohol), John Terry, Roy Keane etc are somewhat dismissed because i think white chairmen are more accustomed to these particular traits, and subconsciously they can empathise with these characters.
As the world gets smaller, and cultural/racial barriers are removed (outside of football), I think we will start to see a lot more black managers in football.
