I think this topic transcends just football and is tied up with what so many on these pages despise as 'Woke' nonsense.

It is the opinion expressed by our own Patrick Viera over the opportunities, or lack of them, afforded to black people when it comes to football management and the upper echelons of the football hierarchy.

Do people on here think there's anything to it, or is just more of the 'woke' claptrap I keep reading about?.

'If you're good enough, people will use you', I am expecting to see, followed by 'stop whingeing.'

Am I wrong?

As an example - Look at Julian S -Just finished his playing career, gone away done his first round of badges, joined the academy lower down the ladder & walked in the door with a smile on his face ready to go to work, surely that's the model that should be used as an example ?

Or am I looking at it wrongly ?

Absolutely - Just throwing this out there - if young footballers come from disadvantaged upbringings where sport is the only way out of a poor existence, perhaps one of the issues is that they haven't received enough basic education to feel able to tackle coaching badges where at least some of the curricular will involve elements of reading & writing ?

I have seen snippets where our modern day academy are said to include school style studies to help the youngsters but if today we are talking about men of managerial age who went through the football playing pyramid starting some 30 / 40 odd years ago, perhaps that educational focus wasn't in place at clubs then ?

I am inclined to believe there may very well be obstacles for 'Black' individuals seeking to become managers, it is not an unreasonable proposal, for me however it is how it is presented that interests/concerns me.

There may be a variety of reasons we do not see so many, whether that be cultural barriers, lack of role models, mentality or anything else. What I do object to is when the narrative reads as something akin to 'It's white people and racism that is stopping this' which for me is aligned to the opposite pole of 'Black players/coaches are [so on and so forth]'. Headlines that read 'Doors are not open (BBC)' for me have already demonstrated the narrative being applied in that somehow it is a racist conspiracy to blame for the lack of black managers. That turns me off immediately as I class it in the same bracket as 'woke nonsense' and it infuriates me on many levels including the racial 'blame game' and also the distraction from what may well be a worthy cause (looking at how we can encourage, support etc. more black individuals to succeed).

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Management is a precarious job. You rarely have long tenure anywhere as you are only as good as your last couple of results.

Do ex players make great managers? Sometimes, but as the 'golden generation,' of players like Scholes, Beckham , Rooney, Lampard,Gerrard they have had at best had mixed results.

If their is an advantage, then perhaps it is that they get given a second chance. Lampard lost his job at Chelsea and got the Everton job. I suspect Gerrard will get another top job.

But in general maybe the issue is around management itself. They tend to have a very short shelf life. But I do think things are changing and PV and Palace are representative of that.

Ia I am not sure Speroni is a good example of anything as Parish has promoted a culture of being apart of the club identity and Speroni is part of that, part of our club DNA.

And of course they do say keepers never make good managers!

Yup.

Sorry all.