Bevington: FA Must Be Proactive In Promoting Minority Managers
Adrian Bevington, Club England’s managing director, believes it is “embarrassing” that Chris Powell is the only black manager in the Football League and has called on the FA to generate more opportunities for ethnic minorities.
Powell took charge at Huddersfield Town last week but his appointment only served to highlight the lack of diversity in the top four divisions of English football.
In recent seasons Chris Hughton, Paul Ince, Chris Kiwomya, Keith Curle and Terry Connor have managed in the Football League but none of them are currently managing.
“I think for the game it’s embarrassing that we have only Chris Powell as the only black manager in the four divisions,” he said on BBC Radio 5 live.
“The fact is from an FA point of view we’ve got to be more proactive in this way. We’ve recently had [former Tottenham assistant] Chris Ramsey, Chris Powell and [former Aston Villa and Middlesbrough defender] Ugo Ehiogu spending certain time with our development teams but we’ve got to get better than this.
“As an industry you can’t have such a high percentage of black players and that’s without looking at other ethnic groups as well – they need to be on boards, on senior management of organisations and they certainly need to be very visible within the coaching staff and the backroom staff of our national teams.”