Paul Ince feel-good factor hides deeper ills

In their desperation, football chairmen have been willing to appoint bung-takers, nepotists and alcoholics in return for decent results. They would recruit a two-headed Martian if they thought he could lift their team up the table while helping to peddle shirts in the Far East. Which is why it has always been worth questioning whether institutional racism does exist in football, as Paul Ince, among others, has implied, and whether it is the cause of the scarcity of black managers. It would be naive in the extreme to think that there are not pockets of prejudice in boardrooms, but would most clubs turn away a black candidate if they thought he would be successful? Is it the clubs who have been racist or have the black candidates simply assumed that they are and therefore not applied in any significant numbers, or with any... [read full story]