I think it’s a convenient argument to suggest BAME don’t pursue qualifications so it’s their own fault for not getting Manager / Head Coaches jobs. But the more pertinent and sometimes the hardest question is to ask why that is?
In all my years of reading the football pages in newspapers, I can’t recall having ever seen an advert for UEFA Coaching Badge courses. So, are the FA marketing these courses correctly, are they targeting the right groups?
Below are paragraphs written by Dr Steven Bradbury who is a Lecturer at the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, UK. His main areas of research interest are focused around issues of sport, diversity, and social justice.
Dr Bradbury found that whilst recent interventions, such as the FA BAME bursary programme, have had some positive impacts in supporting BAME coaches to achieve elite level coaching qualifications, there remain some blockages in the system.
This is especially the case in the transition from education to employment, where many professional clubs continue to operate a series of
‘racially closed’ networks – rather than qualifications-based criteria for coach recruitment.
The link below is to the “Sports People Think Tank†a team of ex-professional athletes that have been monitoring the BAME issue in football. The team includes our own Darren Moore and Jason Roberts.
The site compares the last four years of BAME at the varies levels of coaching in professional football.
http://thesptt.com/