Former Aston Villa and Manchester United forward Dwight Yorke believes football’s attitudes to race may be part of the reason why he has failed to reach the interview stage for managerial jobs.
The Champions League winner has been doing his coaching badges, and put his name forward for the vacant Villa Park job before the club ultimately settled on Steve Bruce.
And, while he accepts his lack of experience is likely standing in the way of him getting his first managerial job, he claims he is not alone among black ex-players in not even being called in for an interview.
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After being asked if his predicament is due to experience, or whether there’s a case for calling the game racist, Yorke told beIN SPorts: “I think it’s a bit of both, yeah. I genuinely think there is a bit of both.
“I do have a tendency when I speak to everybody, certainly black players who are trying to break into the managerial department, they’re all coming up with the same concept of ‘because of your race’.”
Of the 92 managers currently in the Premier League and EFL, fewer than five are black. While Yorke did not suggest there was a conscious racial bias among those hiring new managers, he pointed out that he has heard similar arguments on multiple occasions.
The concept of an equivalent of the NFL’s ‘Rooney Rule’ in English football has been floated, whereby clubs would be required to interview at least one black or minority ethnic candidate, but there would be no quota with regards to hires. This has, however, been met with some opposition and has yet to be introduced.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is one of a handful of black managers in the English Football League (Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)
Yorke expressed his frustration at “hitting a wall”, suggesting he is not expecting to be handed a job straight away but would like to at least be able to state his case at the interview stage.
“What I’m saying it would have been nice to just hear your thoughts,” he said.
“It would be nice to actually go in there and present yourself and let people get to know that person behind the scenes and say ‘Dwight, we like your concept but you’re not experienced enough, go away and do this and do that’.”
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