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SACKED: Hughton, left and Powell (PA)

ALMOST SIXTY per cent of Voice readers who took part in an online poll think black football managers are not getting a chance to take the reigns because club chairmen and boards “prefer white, established candidates”.

Of those who took part in the survey, which asked: “Is institutional racism to blame for there being zero black football managers?” 57 per cent of voters agreed with the question and statement that club chairmen and boards are ignoring black candidates in favour of their white counter-parts.

It was an overwhelming majority who blamed institutional racism for the absence of black managers at the helm of all of England and Wales’ 92 professional clubs following the sackings of Chris Hughton (Norwich), Paul Ince (Blackpool), and Chris Powell (Charlton) earlier this year.

Although it could be claimed one of the biggest clubs in world football – Manchester United – has this week got a black interim manager in the shape Ryan Giggs, who is of mixed black heritage. Nonetheless, his appointment is only for United’s final four games of the season and, despite his managerial experience, Giggs is a well-established name in the game, which makes it difficult to place him in the same category with the likes of Powell and Hughton.

The rest of the poll voters were relatively evenly split between the other three options, with 16 per cent saying the lack of black managers had nothing to do with institutional racism, but was due to the sport being “a results business” and colour not coming into the equation for managerial appointments.

Closely behind, 14 per cent agreed with the statement that it was not racism, and it was in fact down to black managers “simply not [being] good enough right now”.

The remainder – 13 per cent – sat on the fence and were undecided over what reasons were behind the lack of black managers in the beautiful game.

In the US’ National Football League (American Football), clubs are obliged to interview black candidates for head coach roles under the famous Rooney Rule. Campaigners have pushed the English Football Association to introduce a similar set of rules into British football, but as of yet no formal guidelines have been drawn up to help boost the number of non-white managers getting jobs.