“Some people still believe that if you’re good enough, you’ll get an opportunity. But that is the biggest fallacy out there,” says Ricky Hill as he ruminates on the shameful lack of black coaches and executives across professional football. “There is a system in place and it refuses to change.”
We are in Hill’s living room in Bedfordshire, a short drive from Kenilworth Road where he made his name as a sublime and cerebral midfielder for Luton in the 80s. There were international caps too, with Hill becoming the fourth black player to win an England cap and the first of south Asian heritage. But when he decided to go into management in the early 90s, he found baked-in prejudices, an old boys’ network and too many closed doors.
He has been on the frontline for justice and equality ever since. Three decades on, Hill is stunned at how little things have changed. Sure, the game is far more diverse on the pitch and there is less overt racism. But when it comes to the dugout and the boardroom, football is stuck in a time warp.
Last August he sued Major League Soccer, the United Soccer League and various clubs, alleging racial discrimination in their hiring practices in cases that are continuing. He also has serious questions for English football. How can it be, Hill asks, that 43% of Premier League and 34% of Football League players are black, according to a 2022 study by the Black Footballers Partnership, while the number of black managers in the English game can usually be counted on one hand? Or that, according to a 2020 PFA study, fewer than 2% of senior executives and administrators in senior positions are black or of another ethnic minority?
“When I was making the transition into management, some said black people didn’t want to coach,” he says. “Later we were told to get our badges, so that we would be ready if a job became available. We did all that. Yet this generation is still hitting a brick wall.”
That is despite numerous initiatives in recent years. “We’ve had Show Racism the Red Card, Kick It Out, the football leadership diversity code, the voluntary recruitment code, the Rooney rule,” Hill says. “But the bottom line is the needle doesn’t move. The numbers still don’t really change. And I believe some of those policies have actually become a shield for various institutions.”
Not only is it harder for black managers to get jobs, says Hill, it is also much tougher for them to leap back on the managerial merry-go-round if they are perceived to have failed in their previous job. “I love Wayne Rooney,” says Hill. “He started out well at Derby, but after he went to DC United he found it difficult. Then he leaves and gets Birmingham. Good luck to him, but it’s also clear that while he doesn’t have a proven track record he still gets the opportunities.”
Hill is fascinating and warm company. But he refuses to pull his punches. The issue is too important for that. Is English football sleepwalking when it comes to the sheer scale of it. “100%,” he says. “All I have ever wanted is for potential black coaches and executives to be given the same opportunity as everyone else. So you have to ask, why are some of these schemes voluntary? Equality should never be voluntary.”
The Premier League says it is committed to increasing the representation of coaches from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and is in the process of addressing the under-representation of black former players in coaching and other technical roles.
It also points to success stories such as Jon-Paul Pittman, who started on the coaching pathway with help from the Premier League’s professional player to coach scheme and is now at Brentford. However, its chief executive, Richard Masters, did recently admit the “game needs to do more”. For Hill, it needs to be a lot more.
Last year, he wrote to Masters telling him that such “piecemeal” initiatives were “a smokescreen” and the occasional black manager in the Premier League should not “detract from the abysmal treatment that black British ex-professionals have endured over a 30-year period, by a game that stresses that equality is for all”.
So what should be done? For a start, Hill urges the Premier League, Football Association and English Football League to closely examine what the NBA and NFL have done to improve diversity. Around half the NBA’s coaches are black while American football has also made significant strides since Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest against racism in America.
After the George Floyd murder, the NFL promised $250m over 10 years in 2020 to combat systemic racism and support the battle against injustices faced by African Americans. It is also giving up to $205,000 per team for two or three years if they hire a minority offensive coach or woman for a full-time role as part of a new initiative to provide more opportunities for diverse coaching candidates.
That would help, says Hill, who would also like the Premier League to create a fund for qualified, racially diverse, former elite players to be able to set up development programs in their communities. “It boils down to intent versus illusion,” says Hill. “There is definite intent from the NFL and only illusion from the Premier League. How many more years of evidence regarding the lack of diversity in the senior ranks of English football is required before significant action is taken?”
To ensure fairness, Hill would like the proposed football regulator to require an independent expert to sit on any interview panel when senior management and executive positions come up.
Finally, Hill believes the time for the game’s biggest sponsors to speak up is long overdue – whether it is Barclays and Budweiser in the Premier League or Apple and Adidas in the MLS. Especially given such brands are usually keen to stress their commitment to inclusion and diversity.
“Until those who are unaffected become as outraged as those who are affected, things won’t change,” he says. “That’s where sponsors come in. It would be very powerful if they could put pressure on the game to change.”
Hill, who won multiple coach of the year awards and trophies in spells at the Tampa Bay Rowdies and in Trinidad, makes his points with passion and eloquence. He continues to fight on multiple fronts, including his legal action in the US. At the heart of Hill’s case is that white candidates, who were “objectively less qualified”, were given jobs he applied for but for which he didn’t even get an acknowledgment of his interest – let alone interviews.
“After I left the Tampa Bay Rowdies in 2014 my representative must have written for at least 18-20 jobs on my behalf over several years,” he says. “The only reply that came was from Atlanta, three months later, after my representative, Kieren Keane, persisted in not allowing them to ignore my résumé.
“That isn’t fair, as far as I’m concerned. I should get a reasonable reason as to how you arrived at that decision. If it’s meritocracy, then judge my résumé on its merits, the same as everyone else. That hasn’t happened.”
As Hill points out, those rejections came despite the Rooney rule, which has required clubs to interview a black or ethnic minority candidate for senior roles since 2007. The legal action is continuing with the USL and MLS seeking to dismiss the cases against them, claiming they have no involvement or control over the hiring practices of their respective franchises.
Hill’s lawyers say neither league has put forth a position on the merits of whether there has, in fact, been any discrimination in his cases. “These cases have taken great expense, time and commitment,” says Hill. “But hopefully it will create some form of equality not just for me, but for everyone.”
Whatever happens in court, the 64-year-old promises he will continue holding the game he loves to account, so that the next generation enjoy the opportunities he was denied.
“I’m going to keep fighting this until my dying breath,” he says. “I have no option. I never had any inferiority complex as a player and I still don’t have one when it comes to my ability to be a part of a game I love passionately.
“Believe it or not, I’ve experienced many more obstacles than highs. But I still love football and I owe it to my family. Whenever the time comes when I can no longer fight, at least I can say that I tried.”
