Ex-Brighton boss Hughton wants more opportunities for minority coaches

Former Brighton and Hove Albion manager Chris Hughton has urged English football’s stakeholders to develop a framework that would provide coaches from minority backgrounds with more opportunities to take up senior positions.

Hughton’s comments come in the wake of worldwide protests against racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

“Over the years … there were so many BAME coaches who would apply for jobs and not even get an interview,” Hughton told the Guardian referring to coaches from ‘Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME)’ backgrounds.

“… If you are looking at the make-up of our stakeholders and they are without ethnicity, it doesn’t make things easier.

“There is no doubt that our stakeholders have a responsibility. We have to set things in place to encourage more BAME coaches to want to take their badges,” he said.

The England Football League last year said clubs would interview at least one BAME candidate for first-team managerial positions but Hughton says the decision might not lead to more equality in the sport.

“I would have no doubt that a lot of people would use it as a sticking plaster: ‘I will interview at least one BAME person for the job because I have to.

“What I would rather have is for everybody to use it in the right way. This has to lead to BAME individuals in positions of real authority,” the former Newcastle manager said.