President Joe Biden laid out some harsh realities for the NFL on Sunday and characterised the league’s lack of Black head coaches as a clear-cut issue of decency and racist barriers that needed to be broken down.
The president’s Super Bowl interview with NBC News touched on the controversy faced by league team owners regarding the ongoing lack of diversity in NFL coaching staff; despite making up more than half of the league’s player base, only three head coaching jobs in the league are currently held by people of colour. Just one is Black.
Asked about the issue by NBC’s Lester Holt, Mr Biden ridiculed the idea that NFL team owners did not have a plethora of available and highly-qualified candidates to choose from who were not white, like the vast majority of NFL head coaches.
“Think about it, the whole idea that a league that is made up of so many athletes of colour, as well as so diverse, that there's not enough African American qualified coaches to quote, ‘to manage,’ these NFL teams, it just seems to me that it's a standard that they'd want to live up to,” said the president.
He added: “I don't know if there's not a requirement of law, but it's a requirement I think of some just generic decency.”
Mr Biden’s comments at any time would cause consternations for the league; but his choice of venue and timing was significant, as his interview will be watched by millions of football fans around the US tuning in to NBC this afternoon for pregame coverage of the Super Bowl. The Cincinnati Bengals are set to play the LA Rams for this year’s championship.
The NFL’s head commissioner Roger Goodell last week admitted that the league “fell short” in its effort to diversify its coaching staffs. Much of the blame for the failure is being leveled at the ownership of the NFL’s teams; just two teams are owned by persons of colour, and there are no Black team owners.
“We believe in diversity,” Mr Goodell said at a news conference outside Los Angeles’s SoFi Stadium, which is currently shared by the Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. “We believe it has made us stronger. People who have come into the league who are diverse have been very successful and made us better, and we just have to do a better job ... Is there another thing that we can do to make sure that we're attracting the best talent and making our league more inclusive? If I had the answer right now, I would give it to you. I would have implemented it.”
Racism and representation in the NFL is a long-debated topic but has reentered the headlines following a massive lawsuit filed on 1 February by Brian Flores, the Black former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, alleging discrimination in NFL coaching hiring practices. Mr Flores revealed in text messages that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, through a mistaken text message meant for current New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll, let it slip that Mr Daboll had been selected for the Giants’ head coaching position days before Mr Flores himself was set to interview for the position under the pretense that it was still open.
The embarrassing text exchange exposed evidence suggesting that Mr Flores had been selected as a potential candidate for public image purposes while the Giants’ ownership had no plans to consider him.
Kickoff on Sunday is set for 3:30 p.m. pst in front of of a full-size crowd at SoFi Stadium following last year’s matchup in front of a reduced crowd at Florida’s Raymond James Stadium.
