Brighton boss Chris Hughton urges Premier League to adopt Rooney Rule
CHRIS HUGHTON has urged the Premier League to follow the FA and the Football League and adopt the Rooney Rule.
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The FA announced on Tuesday that it will adopt the rule, which requires at least one black, Asian or minority ethnic [BAME] candidate to be interviewed for every England coaching job.
The Football League have also signed up to it since January 1 – but it is understood the Premier League has no plans to follow suit.
However Brighton boss Hughton, the only BAME manager in the top flight, said: “The Premier League clubs are the next stages.
“All we want is for progress to be made and eventually to see more black and ethnic coaches involved at the higher levels of the game.
“The rule itself is set up not to give black and ethnic minority candidates jobs, it’s to give them the opportunities to get jobs.
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All we want is for progress to be made
“We are working in a very multi-cultural environment now as regards players and grassroots and starting very much at academy level.
"We just want the right representation at the top levels of our game. That includes management, decision-makers, CEOs. That’s what everybody would want.
“It’s something I’ve spoken quite a lot about, particularly over the last year, and for the FA to have made the decision they have is very promising. We can speak about what could have been done earlier, but we have to speak about now and progress that can be made.”
Hughton is open to applying the rule to his own coaching appointments in future, although he admitted that his choice of assistant manager, Paul Trollope, in November 2016 was an example of the old pals’ act rather than a selection from a carefully-compiled and balanced shortlist.
However, he had previously appointed Paul Nevin as first-team coach in June 2016 by adhering to the Rooney rule, consciously or otherwise.
“Yes, it’s certainly something that I would think of,” he said. “Paul Trollope had worked with me before so it was a natural one for me when Colin Calderwood left and I needed to bring someone in at very quick notice.
“Paul Nevin I’d worked with but not directly. So he was someone I knew but he was one of three or four that I spoke with and after that decided to give the job to him.”
Steve Sidwell, the Brighton midfielder who is recovering from a back operation, has fractured a leg in training and could now miss the rest of the season.
