QPR Didn’t Sack Chris Ramsey For Being Black
Reports have swirled around the internet regarding Chris Ramsey’s sacking at QPR yesterday. Questions have arisen regarding the “real reasons” behind his ouster. I’ve ever heard some pundits argue the Premier League needs to institute some sort of pro-minority interview policies like the National Football League’s “Rooney Rule.” Let me clear this up for you. Chris Ramsey didn’t get sacked by QPR because he’s black. He was sacked because he lost too many matches.
The Rangers currently sit 13th in the Championship table despite being favored for promotion in the preseason. They have enough talent to be well above that in the table. Chris Ramsey seems like a good guy and might even be a decent manager, but he wasn’t getting the job done.
QPR has too much talent to be struggling like they are. Striker Charlie Austin has seven goals already this season after his prolific Premier League season a year ago. He provides them a striker who is quite literally, a class above their league.
Add Austin to other former Premier League players like Sandro, Leroy Fer, Junior Hoilett and Matthew Phillips and you have a core that should be doing better. As the old saying goes, you can’t fire the team, so you have to fire the manager.
Sadly for fans at Loftus Road, QPR’s problems go deeper than just Chris Ramsey. They have top-end talent, but they’ve tried to solve all of their problems by throwing money at players. They’ve lacked a coherent vision and plan for the last several years and now they’re paying the price for that.
I dare say that Chris Ramsey would have been fired if his skin was as white as an albino newborn baby’s bottom. Conversely, if QPR was occupying the top spot in the Championship he’d still have a job even if he was purple. This wasn’t a race issue. It was and is a performance issue.
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We should all feel fortunate that the firing of a black manager hasn’t caused more of an uproar in English football. The fact that it hasn’t caused a firestorm of media coverage shows how far we’ve come in the sport. Football does more as an international sport to eradicate racism than any other game. This has aided this in being a “non story.”
Perhaps we do need more incentive for English teams to cast a wider racial net when they are interviewing potential managers. That’s a debate for another day. What we don’t need is for clubs to fear making a change at manager if they happen to have a minority in the position. This would have serious negative effects on the ability of minorities to ascend to managerial roles.
Chris Ramsey lost his job at QPR for purely performance related issues. It didn’t have a thing to do with color.