The Rooney Rule

[The High Priest]

In the NFL they have a rule named after a guy called Rooney. The rule mandates that every NFL club must interview a black guy when they're hiring a manager. They don't have to give him the job - they just have to interview him. It's been incredibly successful: not only have more black managers been hired but those black managers have been remarkably successful. Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis Colts manager, won the Superbowl last year. The team he beat in the final, the Atlanta Falcons, were also managed by a black guy.

It'd be nice if we could get Bates to put something similar in place for Leeds. There are so many smart black players out there - Les Ferdinand, Dion Dublin, Sol Campbell, arguably David James to name just a few - that it seems a criminal waste for none of them get much chance in management. It would resonate all the more powerfully if it happened at a club like ours, which had its problems with racism in the 70s and 80s (and even in 1995 at White Hart Lane when some utter cunts behind me started abusing a black steward).

Thoughts?