5 hours ago, Valerie said:

How on earth can you guarantee that?  I wish you are right (although even nearly no bias is unacceptable), but I fear there is still a lot of hidden (and open) racism out there, not just in footbal btw. Anecdote: I read a story somewhere that a black big shot CEO was stopped by a new doorman from entering his own office building and directed to a side entrance for deliveries. 

I'm not completely convinced when given a choice between equally suitable candidates of different colour, white members of a selection committee will appoint a non-white, finding a reason why the white guy (and it's always a guy) is juuuuuust the better candidate.

On the gender issue the same happens: many go into a cramp thinking up reasons why a woman can't manage a male top team, pretending these are rational and objective explanations. My comfort is that the so-called reasonable objections were used against women becoming doctors, pilots, architects, etcetera etcetera... Look how that worked out

I think this is a good, reasoned post, as are pretty much all of Valerie's . However, I am also concerned that whenever something negative happens where there is an ethnic minority element it just seems the easy option by the media to call on racial bias. Chris Hughton's sacking seems to be an example. Why did Sky go to John Barnes and the Kick it Out lobby so quickly for his thoughts on the sacking. It just seemed the easy choice. Perahps there was no racial bias to his sacking. Maybe the board just felt that his time had run and his use of the small budget at his disposal hadn't been best used. Perhaps. The point being if every time a manager of an ethnic minority background is sacked and there is an immediate outcry of racial prejudice, often with no solid foundation, then this, in itself, will surely make boards disinclined to hire and take on this potential future media sh*t storm.

To a certain degree this could also apply to gender equality.

Women may well manage top flight mens teams in the future but I feel that there is still such a corrupt (not financial) "boys club mentality" underbelly in football rife with nepotism and cronyism that i think this will still be a long way off. After all it is only in this generation that it has generally been accepted for top fight managers to have not played the game at a major level. Hodgson, Wenger, Mourinho would have been scoffed at as "schoolteacher/amateur" coaches in the era i started watching football in, Allison, Kendall, Shankley, Paisley, Clough etc.

We seem to have evolved to the point where these technical coaches are now regarded as some of the best managers in world football so there is no reason why women can't tread a similar path, but surely this will be a long old road.

And, much as i like Emma Hayes, please don't let us be the pilot. I'm royally fcked off with the glee with which the media outlets pounce on us for any negativity, whether its anti semiticism, our upcoming ban, the merry go round of managers and how much compensation we pay, etc. Its just a constant stream of sh!te and fake news designed to undermine the club, the last thing we need right now is to then be labelled the anti gender club for sacking the first female manager of a mens side because the prima donna players didn't want to take instruction from a woman who hasn't played the game to the same level as them.

She's a specialist in women's football, it's a completely different game. In her current job she's dealing with physically different players at a slower pace. Goalkeepers mostly around or under 6 feet tall.

I'm all for equality but why does it have to be a top elite club to do this experiment? If she's good enough for Chelsea, she's good enough for every club in the men's pyramid.

Honestly if we did this we would be forced to sack her in 1 or 2 months if not sooner, then no one will follow suit and we would not have progressed the movement yet will suffer for it.

Why don't the media pressure the FA to give her an England U-21 job? They are just having a laugh