Liam Rosenior: Black coaches can win the Super Bowl, why not the Premier League?

Ex-Brighton and Hove Albion defender Liam Rosenior was last week named as a new member on the Football Association's Inclusion Advisory Board (IAB).
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The IAB is a subcommittee of the FA board which aims to enhance diversity and equality at all levels of the game.

Rosenior was a popular and respected figure during his time at Albion. He left in 2018 and is currently the first team coach at Derby County.

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Here we take a look back to 2017, where Rosenior gave an open and candid interview with our reporter Steve Bailey, on the race issues facing football

Former Brighton and Hove Albion defender Lian RoseniorFormer Brighton and Hove Albion defender Lian Rosenior
Former Brighton and Hove Albion defender Lian Rosenior

Brighton’s Liam Rosenior tells Steve Bailey why he won’t let skin colour affect his burning desire to become a manager

Liam Rosenior has ambitions to become a manager in the future and is not going to let the lack of black bosses currently in the English game affect his dream.

The 33-year-old defender, who has played for Bristol City, Fulham, Reading and Hull, is now at Brighton and Hove Albion, who are preparing for their first season back in the top flight of English football for 34 years.

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Rosenior is managed by Chris Hughton, one of only two black managers in England’s top four divisions – Keith Curle at Carlisle being the other – and he speaks passionately about his desire to become a manager when his playing time comes to an end.

Rosenior is focused about his post-playing days and is not put off by the statistics. “Not particularly,” he says, “because I think if I ever get the opportunity to interview, I’d like to think I could impress people enough to give me the job and look past the colour of my skin.

“Look at the likes of the manager [Hughton] when he was playing. Clyde Best, Cyrille Regis, people like that. When they started playing football as little boys and saw no black players playing, should they give up just because the statistics of black players playing in the English league were so low? I think the only way you change it is to be ambitious.

“I’m ambitious and I want to manage at the top level and I feel like I have the capabilities to do that. If I get a chance or not I don’t know but I’m willing and ready to do that when the time comes.”

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Rosenior admits a modified version of the NFL’s Rooney Rule in America, where minority candidates are interviewed for jobs, is something he would like to see in England. The 2017 NFL season will begin next month with one Latino and seven African-American head coaches.

“At first I was against it,” he says. “I was against tokenism, for want of a better term. But then I looked at the effect it had on the NFL and it’s been outstanding.

“They’ve got top black coaches now winning Super Bowls and they’re great role models for the younger generation of black people. We have our manager here and I think it’s really important for the likes of my generation and the next generation to have people we can look up to and emulate.

“I think it’s been a good thing for the NFL and maybe it needs to be modified for English football. I don’t see any harm in giving people a chance to interview. It’s not guaranteeing them a job but it’s a chance to interview when maybe they wouldn’t get that chance before.”

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Is he surprised by the lack of black managers in English football? “I don’t know if surprised is the right word because how many English managers are there in the Premier League? There’s 20 jobs and being a Premier League manager is being part of the best league in the world. So I don’t know if it’s surprising or not.

“But we’re blessed to have the manager we’ve got, regardless of the colour of his skin. Hopefully things in time will change but you just want the right people for the job, no matter the colour of their skin. I think society has moved on from even 20 years ago. People are a lot more open-minded now and hopefully that will continue in the future.”

Hughton believes Rosenior has all the credentials to become a manager. “He’s put himself in the best possible position to get into management,” Hughton says. “ He’s doing all his badges, he’s a wonderful individual to have around the place and he has a real thirst for knowledge.

“He’s great for us in the changing room, so all of the ingredients are there and he’s desperate to become a coach. It will be about him and opportunities. How well he’ll do is impossible to say but I think he’s got all the right credentials to become a good manager.”

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Rosenior admits Hughton is a role model for him and he also studies the likes of Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone, Jürgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho when at home as he prepares for life when his playing career ends: “I study all of the ways they play and the ways they put their methodologies into training and into games.

"It’s my hobby as well as my passion and it’s what I do when I go home. I bore my missus to tears!”

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