The Economics of Sport
  • Sports Economics
  • About
  • Workshop
  • Selected Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • A Primer on Gaelic Games
  • Upcoming Events
  • Media
  • Education
  • Resources & Links
  • Data

Black, Minority and Ethnic Coaches in English Football

14/2/2015

 
By John Considine
Picture
Queens Park Rangers have appointed Chris Ramsey as their new manager.  Ramsey's appointment will be welcomed by those who believe black, minority and ethic coaches are underrepresented in English football.  I would count myself amongst this group.  As someone who has followed the fortunes of QPR for decades, I hope Ramsey keeps them in the Premier League.  The away win against Sunderland was a great start.

Convention dictates that a person should only support one team in a competition.  Therefore, when QPR challenged Liverpool for the title in the 1970s I was forced to opt for one or the other.  Liverpool were the team I loved to watch on TV.  However, I sided with the underdog on the grounds that I would like them to win one title.  Liverpool remained the team I preferred to watch.

It is a bit like that with Ramsey.  He did not have a very high profile prior to his appointment.  He also has some characteristics not regularly seen among managers in the Premier League.  He is black and bald (Ferguson, Wenger, and Mourino all have plenty of hair.)  A 2014 report by Stephen Bradbury shows that black, minority, and ethnic (BME) coaches are underrepresented in English football (here).  The picture below is taken from that report.  It shows that BME make up 14% of the English population.  BME are overrepresented in the players grouping and underrepresented in coaching positions.

Picture
Is there discrimination against BME coaches like Ramsey?  This is a difficult question to answer.  It is easy to fall into, what the economist Thomas Sowell calls, the residual fallacy.  "A common procedure in trying to prove discrimination with statistics is to (1) establish that there are statistical disparities between two or more groups, (2) demonstrate that the odds that these particular disparities are a result of random chance are very small, and (3) show that, even holding constant various non-discriminatory factors which might influence the outcomes, that still leaves a substantial residual difference between the groups, which must be presumed to be due to discrimination."  Sowell spends plenty of time explaining the problems with this approach in his book called The Vision of the Anointed.

There are plenty of other difficulties with the statistical approach to proving discrimination.  Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski write about some of them in Soccernomics.  Kuper & Szymanski argue that discrimination has become less of an issue when it comes to players, but that it remains an issue in the hiring of coaches.  The authors of Soccernomics take the reader through some of Szymanski's research on the issue.  They point out that when the data for 1978-1997 was examined, a massive 92% of the variation in league position could be explained by wages.  That leaves only 8% of the variation for discrimination to raise its ugly head.  Yet, it was an alternative approach that was used to determine if discrimination was taking place.  Szymanski showed that teams with a greater proportion of black players outperformed their rivals - "If two teams had identical annual wage budgets, the team with more black players would finish higher in the league".  I'm sure that those who would argue that there is not discrimination might query some aspect of his statistical approach, e.g. he forgot to include some important control variable.

Another problem with a statistical approach to discrimination is the problem with measuring a player's productivity.  Given the overarching theme of the Soccernomics, it is very surprising to read the following sentence "Anyone who knew soccer could judge fairly easily how good a player was just by watching him play".  The disagreement about almost every player's ability surely raises issues about this sentence.  When it comes to managers we tend to have less data and this makes the measurement problem even bigger.

At the end of the season, we will have data on Ramsey's wins, draws and losses.  Let us hope that even with this limited data, we can say his time was a success.  In the meantime I would encourage people to read the chapter in Soccernomics.  The book, and the relevant chapter on discrimination, does what its title suggests.  By contrast, and in the words of Homer Simpson, To Kill a Mockingbird does not teach him how to kill a mocking bird but it did teach him not to judge a man by the colour of his skin.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    About

    This website was founded in July 2013.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    American Football
    Athletics
    Baseball
    Basketball
    Behavioural Economics
    Boxing
    Broadcasting
    Competitive Balance
    Cricket
    Cycling
    Darts
    David Butler
    Declan Jordan
    Drugs
    Ed Valentine
    Epl
    Esports
    Expenditure
    F1
    Fifa World Cup
    Finances
    Funding
    Gaa
    Gaelic Games
    Gambling
    Game Theory
    Gary Burns
    Geography
    Golf
    Greyhound Racing
    Guest Posts
    Horse Racing
    Impact Studies
    John Considine
    John Eakins
    League Of Ireland
    Location
    Media
    Mls
    Mma
    Olympics
    Participation
    Paul O'Sullivan
    Premier League
    Regulation
    Research
    Robbie Butler
    Rugby
    Simpsonomics
    Snooker
    Soccer
    Spatial Analysis
    Sporting Bodies
    Stephen Brosnan
    Swimming
    Taxation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tennis
    Transfers
    Uefa
    Ufc
    World Cup
    Wwe

Related

The website is not formally affiliated to any institution and all of the entries represent the personal views and opinions of an individual contributor. The website operates on a not-for-profit basis. For this reason we decline all advertisement opportunities. 

Contact

To contact us email sportseconomics2013@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @SportEcon.