Abstract
No British Asian has ever managed a professional English football club. And, while there are 20 black senior football coaches out of 482, there are only two British Asian senior coaches (Bradbury, 2017a). While a plethora of studies have investigated the exclusion of British Asian male football players (Bains and Patel, 1996; Burdsey, 2004a; 2004b; 2007; Kilvington, 2012; 2013; 2016; 2017), the exclusion of British Asian football coaches has been largely ignored. Considering the recent implementation of a version of the Rooney Rule by the English Football League and Football Association (FA) at national level (Kilvington, 2018; Lusted, 2017), this chapter offers an examination of the barriers that British Asian football coaches encounter. It presents data collected from semi-structured interviews with British Asian football coaches at all levels of the game, using Critical Race Theory to methodologically and theoretically inform the discussion. This chapter therefore provides a platform whereby British Asian football coaches can offer personal stories providing strong and persuasive arguments for change. This research provides a critical understanding of the barriers British Asian coaches encounter while also offering recommendations for reform, which have been built from the experiences of the participants themselves.
Published Version
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