When Jason Euell was starting to prepare for his Uefa “B” Licence while at Southampton aged 31, this was an action plan that he believed would serve him best for when he eventually stopped playing at 35, then a League One champion with Charlton Athletic. With black coaches grossly under-represented in professional football, Euell wanted to turn every stone.
The reason, as obvious to him as a black coach as it is bleak for our sport in general, is that he didn’t want decision-makers to have an easy reason to say no: “I didn’t want there to be any easy opt out for them.”
And so Euell embarked on doing every possible qualification and working at academy level from the start of the Elite Player Performance Plan in 2012. He has been the Under-16s Lead Coach (working alongside the U18s) then Under-21s Lead Coach at Charlton – the latter he did for almost eight years. Euell helped to develop Joe Gomez, Ademola Lookman, Ezri Konsa and Joe Aribo, amongst others, eventually leading to him becoming the First Team Coach in April 2021.
He has coached England Under-18s and Under-20s, between 2018 and 2022 while still balancing his day-to-day role with Charlton. He has been a stand-in assistant manager, an assistant manager and a first-team coach. He has coaching badges up to and including his Uefa Pro Licence and the League Managers’ Association (LMA) diploma in football management. Before all that, he played almost 300 Premier League matches. And after more than a decade of trying, still the dream is just a dream: to get a job as a football manager.
For Euell and other ethnic minority coaches, there hangs an undue burden of responsibility.
One tenet of privilege is the ability to live out your career within your own bubble, as an individual. It is not something that Euell believes is possible for him. Others made it possible for him. He must do the same.
“The reason I even have the dream to do this is because of those who came before me, people who opened doors through their trailblazing: Keith Alexander, Darren Moore, Chris Powell, Paul Ince,” Euell says.
“But there’s still nowhere near enough of us. It creates a pressure, because what happens if I don’t realise the dream?
“There will be black faces who come after me and think ‘Jason had his playing career, his experiences and put in that amount of work – if he can’t get a number one role, how am I supposed to get one?’. If I don’t break through this glass ceiling, what does that do for the next generation?”
There will be those who are hardwired to scoff at this suggestion, but the figures are stark. More than 40 per cent of professional footballers in England are from an ethnic minority and yet representation within coaching and management remains far lower and is barely improving.
The issue is present in the boardroom too. Where a lack of diversity exists in personnel, the same is mirrored in decision-making and so the same names get picked. People inherently trust what they think they know. It’s something that Burnley manager Vincent Kompany has recently discussed and Euell concurs.
“Change only happens when we have diversity in boardroom level and decision-makers,” he says. “It’s all a dropdown effect. With a room full of older white men, their experience is different to mine of the journey through football and through life. If you had a diverse background there, someone who had at least an understanding of my upbringing, that makes a difference. It becomes more of a conversation. Diversity is about understanding of mindset and experience.”
The other point Euell makes, and it’s not something I’d considered, is that we’re also letting down players too. Professional academies are factories in which greatness can be developed, but they’re also home to a large number of young children from a variety of backgrounds, some of which are challenging. That creates a responsibility to make those environments as welcoming as possible.
“When I came through 30 years ago, there were no black coaches whatsoever,” he says. “Whatever age group you’re working at, these players are vulnerable. Seeing someone of the same skin tone as you, around you – it gives you a bit of confidence. It makes you feel like you belong.
“I was the coach, the role model, the educator, the friend, the uncle – you have to be everything. When you’re working with young people, they’re not going to listen to everything you say. All you hope as an educator is that something you say sticks with them and shapes them long after you’ve stopped working together. That connection is more likely if they don’t feel like an outsider.”
Six months ago, Euell left Bristol City when manager Nigel Pearson was sacked. Such is the life of the first-team coach. It is the longest he has been out of football since signing his first apprentice contract at Wimbledon in 1993 and he admits to getting first bored, now frustrated. Craving routine and structure, he has upped his exercise, tidied up his presentations, visited clubs and begun an intensive Spanish course to further improve his CV.
And so the cycle begins again: conversations about conversations, applications, interviews and, until now, thanks but no thanks. Euell stresses that he is not the type to apply for roles en masse, as some will, nor to circle like a vulture above the grounds where a manager may soon be sacked. When he gets that first job, it has to fit because that way it has the best chance of working, knowing how important that “first job” will be. The only choice is not a choice at all: keep on keeping on.
“There has been one interview where I came out of and I thought…not quite ‘Oh what’s the point?’ but certainly did think ‘here we go again’,” Euell says. “But the game is always evolving and you live in hope that structures will change. More windows have to appear.
“The only other thing to ask for is that we are treated as individuals. You see on social media people treating black coaches as one mass, judging all their win ratios. That can’t be how things operate. If black coaches only get one opportunity and it’s for one season and a white coach has four seasons with maybe two or three different clubs, the win ratios are bound to be different. They are getting the opportunities.
“I’m me, not anyone else,” Euell adds, and he’d be forgiven for being tired of saying it. “I’m an individual. Look at my CV, look at my experience and see if I’m the right person for your football club.”
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