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By Amaechi Agbo

Former Super Eagles forward Finidi George has said that racism in Europe does not give black coaches the chance to manage top clubs, Bestchoicesports.com.ng reports.

Mr George was reacting following Manchester City and England’s forward, Raheem Sterling’s demand that black coaches be given a chance in the English Premiership League, EPL as well as exposition made by Dwight Yorke that he was denied the chance to manage his former club, Aston Villa because he was black.

Sterling cited the respective fortunes of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, who have landed top roles at Rangers and Chelsea in the early stages of their management careers, as compared to equally experienced black players who have been compelled to start much lower down the ladder.

“This is a time to speak on these subjects, speak on injustice, especially in my field.

“There’s something like 500 players in the Premier League and a third of them are black and we have no representation of us in the hierarchy, no representation of us in the coaching staffs. There’s not a lot of faces that we can relate to and have conversations with.

“I’ll give a perfect one. There’s Steven Gerrard, your Frank Lampards, you have your Sol Campbells and you have your Ashley Coles. All had great careers, all played for England. At the same time, they’ve all respectfully done their coaching badges to coach at the highest level and the two that haven’t been given the right opportunities are the two black former players.

“I feel like that’s what’s lacking here, it’s not just taking the knee, it is about giving people the chance they deserve,”

The former Manchester United and Aston Villa striker Dwight Yorke also bemoaned his struggles in the managerial market, revealing even a hand from Sir Alex Ferguson could not help him earn a shot at another of his old clubs. He told BeIN Sports: “I’ve applied for the Villa job twice now. I get one response from the CEO and his response to me was I need experience.
“Where am I going to go and get experience if I’m not being given a chance? When I applied for the Villa job, I went into [Ferguson’s] office and told him exactly what I was trying to do. He gave me some experience, he told me what I needed to do and I picked his brain. At the same time, he picked the phone up and rang Villa for me to give his recommendation. With his help, I still can’t get an interview. That is what we are facing.”

Reacting to the scenarios, Finidi George said Black coaches do.not have a chance in Europe and appealed to.Nigerian journalists to push the campaign for the employment of local coaches to head various national teams in the country

“I just saw what you posted about Dwight Yorke. That’s the bitter truth about racism. I’ll want to appeal to you guys to push for our brothers.

“We don’t even have a chance in Europe and we’re struggling in our country because our administrators don’t know what blacks go through in the diaspora,” he said.

Finidi added that “You guys have the power to change things with such article of Dwight Yorke.”