A Premier League head coach has insisted that "doors are not open" for black managers in the world's biggest leagues, and called for more opportunities to be made available to people of colour in football's top divisions.
According to BBC Sport, a new report has shown that 43% of players in the Premier League are black, while in the EFL Championship that number stands at 34%.
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What is perhaps more jarring is that data collected from all EPL and Championship clubs indicates that only 4.4% of managers across the two tiers are black, with this information having been made available through the Football Association's Diversity Code, which was launched in 2020 to tackle racial inequality in the English game.
This new data will not have impressed Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira, who feels black managers need to be given more opportunities going forward.
"We have to give opportunities to people of colour," he said on the BBC's Football News Show.
"We are as good as anybody else. And we need to have no more or less opportunity than anybody else.
"When you are looking at the top five leagues in the world and you're looking at the number of black coaches you have in the first or second division, it is not enough.
"There is a lack of opportunity there. There is a lack of connection from black players to connect ourselves a little bit more with people who are making the decisions.
"But overall I believe that the doors are not open for us to do what we can do and to go into management.
"When I talk about management I'm talking about the team, but I'm also talking about the higher level as well.
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"We need to be given more opportunities to show that we are as good as anybody else."
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