Echoes of racism in Brazil: the under-representation of black coaches in soccer

 

Luiz Roque

Carlos Figueiredo

 

Abstract
This study aims to identify the representativeness of the black in the head coach positions in elite clubs of the Brazilian championship of male soccer. We conducted a quantitative survey to identify how clubs hired black coaches during the Brazilian championship for each season, between 2008 to 2017. After the quantitative survey, we selected influential black coaches and conducted in-depth interviews. The quantitative findings show that black coaches occupied only 3.41% of the total opportunities offered by elite clubs. About the interviewees, their responses contrast with the perceptions that black athletes and coaches have about racism and that we find in the reviewed literature. Despite the low representativeness and obstacles to black coaches in Brazilian football, respondents emphasized that affirmative action is unnecessary.
Keywords: soccer; exclusion; affirmative actions; racism; race

Introduction
Brazil is one of the most critical countries in soccer. It is also the country outside the African continent with the largest black population (Castles, Hein and Miller, 2014). Soccer carries in its essence, one of society's most useful representations in its positive and negative aspects (DaMatta, 2006). Racism is an old theme; however, the nuances of discrimination end up creating new phenomena, producing echoes that deserve our attention. Studies on racism and sports in the Brazilian and international literature have gained more and more space in the academic community (Hylton, 2009; Long, Robinson and Spracklen, 2005; Pérez, 2017; Sack, Singh and Thiel; Silva and Votre, 2006; Singer, 2005; Tonini, 2010).
Long and McNamee (2004) explore responsibility and guilt for committed and unacknowledged racism in sports, critically assessing athletes who try to rationalize it. The authors argue that many correct responses to racism are undifferentiated, depending on the lesser or greater cruelty. They propose, then, a more precise conceptual scheme: (1) ethically excusable (ethically incapacitated, ignorance, accurate racist observation, unintentional, incapable of change, (2) ethically inexcusable (committed racist, malicious, typical racist, willful character). These polarities would have behaviors of the type: ethically immature, erroneous perception, occasional, negligent, changeable/entrenched education. This way, we would leave the conception on/off, that is, this person is racist or not, it was a racist incident, but it does little justice to a complex phenomenon. There must be a distinct appreciation of racism and its myriads.
Scholars critical of racism claim that a 'colorblind' racial ideology dominates the modern period of ethnic-racial relations. They argue that while individuals continue to have conventional racial views, they tend to minimize racial discourse in public to avoid stigma; the open racist dialogue became denied in society (Pérez, 2017).
Burdsey (2011) investigated the presence and effects of racial micro-aggressions in English cricket. Using interviews with British Asian players, he identified a tendency to underestimate the repercussions of racist demonstrations. For him, there is an ideology that preserves white groups and forces groups that suffer aggressions to endorse dominant groups' thinking. The tendency of the subjugated is to underestimate racial violence, seeing it as a joke.
Bradbury and Kilvington have studied the racial disparity between representation inside and outside the field of Blacks and South Asians. Data from 482 professional football coaches, 20 are black (Bradbury, 2019) and two are British Asian (Kilvington, 2020).
Although these studies reflect an emerging concern, racism is not a new problem. We could doubt that this problem could exist since individuals in their daily activities would be very concerned with survival and the practical issues to be resolved and would not perceive the discrimination they are subject (Silva, 1998).
However, although the black player makes the difference with a notorious contribution to soccer, there are still a few opportunities for black coaches in Brazil (Tonini, 2010; Silva, 1998, 2002, Silva and Votre, 2006). Thus, investigating this problem and trying to understand how this gear works can add new insights to the discussion. The questions about affirmative actions and their implementation in sport are among the paths covered in this study, given Brazil's legal paradigms. We must also remember the Rooney Rule adopted by football to increase the participation of ethnic minority individuals in the United States as coaches in the National Football League (NFL) teams (Solow, Solow and Walker, 2001). The idea of individuals who are stuck to physical characteristics and find barriers in the development of their professional careers, the lack of representativeness in the positions of decision making, leadership, and management are issues that merit deepening. Affirmative actions are tools to mitigate this lack of representation.
Some authors deal with the representativeness of the blacks in the position of coach in Brazilian soccer. Tonini (2010) proposes a study on the racial problem in modern Brazilian football from the oral histories of blacks that acted between 1970 and 2010. Silva and Queiroz Filho (2005) discussed the participation of black coaches in the 2004 Brazilian soccer championship when no blacks participated as the team's coach that competed that year.
Ben Carrington (2013) reviews the first 50 years of a critical sociology of race and sport and discusses C.L.R. James's book Beyond a Boundary (1967). Despite the criticisms that may exist about the more interdisciplinary approach of the properly sociological present in the book, Carrington considers it the founding text of the critical sociology of race and sport.
In Brazilian literature, we can consider the book of Mario Filho (1943[1967]), The Negro in Brazilian football, as the founding text on the ethnic-racial issue in Brazil. Several authors have addressed the racial issue. We can mention, in addition to the classic Mario Filho, Helal and Gordan Jr. (1999); Murad (1999); Silva (1998); Soares (1999), among others. However, these studies discussed the ethnic-racial issue from a macro perspective.
Silva (2002) adds a topic that opens the discussion about the participation of the black coach in Brazilian football. This author addresses the domination structures that make it difficult for blacks to enter as head coaches. The data provide evidence that blacks find it challenging to enter the soccer coaches' job market.
Although we find national and international references on the representativeness of black in the head coach's position in different sports, we noticed a gap in the literature when focusing on Brazilian soccer. The Brazilian men's soccer championship series A is the competition that attracts the most significant number of sponsors, the most massive audience, and the most significant media attention in Brazil. This research looked at data in the sense of understanding how the participation of the black coaches takes place. The number of Brazilian black players is not represented in command positions. The few studies carried out on this subject are still not sufficient to provoke practical actions of the transformation of this reality.
To identify the representativeness of the black occupying the head coach's position in the elite clubs of the Brazilian league, we listed the first question investigated: (a) how many blacks held the position of coach in the Brazilian men's soccer championship series A between 2008-2017?
It is necessary to reflect on the reasons that limit the access of this individual to the desired position, what considerations can we collect and discuss? Therefore, to gather enough data on the subject, it is essential to answer the second question: (b) does the black coach see racism as a barrier to professional advancement?
There are places and not places for the blacks; structurally, there exists even under the inevitable fabric imposition of what can and cannot for these individuals (Crelier and Silva, 2018). We emphasize that even when he obtains command position, the black coach lives under unfounded pressure, sometimes accentuated by the media's treatment. Thus, we must turn to the third question: (c) what affirmative actions could be implemented to mitigate institutionalized structural racism?
For the promotion of the material conditions of happiness to be carried out uniformly for society, equal opportunities require actions that emphasize this goal's affirmation. Therefore, pondering and discussing the possibility of implementing affirmative actions along the lines of the NFL Rooney Rule and those already existing in Brazilian law is justified. The issue was widely debated in the United States, as Duru (2008) emphasized, until the implementation of Rooney Rule, recalling that this was a social agenda that led the NFL, after analyzing the data, to realize the need to promote equality through of institutional regulation. The same demand was brought to the UK, as there is also the same phenomenon, the same modus operandi. According to the English Football Association, in 2018, the Rooney Rule was adopted to choose England's new coach and then implement it in the Premier League (Corapi, 2012).
In Brazil, the expressions black (preto) and negro (negro) are not yet a consensus. Historically, the term negro constitutes, for example, the "Movimento Negro do Brasil"1. However, there are criticisms about the term negro. In the Brazilian census, the term used is black (preto). We would also like to clarify that black people in this study include people of African descendent and those who call themselves blacks, despite not presenting the phenotype. However, we do not include those from Asia and their descendants.
Analyzing the representation of the black coaches in the position of coach in the Brazilian soccer league can collaborate to understand how this relationship between the job and the individual develops. Considering the history of Brazilian social construction and its overflow to the field of sport, it becomes imperative to think about this exclusion. Looking at the need to include the black, we started thinking about the possibility of a legislative proposal that meets the policy of affirmative action already implemented in our country and analyzing an international sports paradigm.
This study aims to identify the representativeness of black individuals in the head coach's positions in the elite clubs of the Brazilian men's soccer championship series A.

Material and methods

The results presented in this article are extracted from a study that examines testimonies of sports journalists, black coaches and a quantitative survey of the hiring of black coaches in the main Brazilian men's soccer championship.
This study is descriptive, seeking to expose the phenomenon investigated from quantitative data and in-depth interviews with black coaches, with a qualitative approach. To increase reliability, we used the triangulation between the data collected through the bibliographic review, interviews, and survey. We combining points of view, data sources, theoretical approach, or methods of data collection in the same research so that we can obtain a more accurate picture of the reality of the phenomena to be analyzed. Participants reviewed the researcher's analysis results to confirm if the interpretations reflected their experiences/ideas/ feelings (Coutinho, 2008). The Institutional Ethics Committee in Brazil approved this research with CAAE 01842918.3.0000.5289 and process 3005626.
The quantitative analysis of the presence of black coaches in the Brazilian Championship comes from a survey conducted between seasons 2008 and 2017, which included all coaches enrolled in Brazilian men's soccer championship series A. The database, covering the ten seasons of football, was prepared based on the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF)2. We analyzed how many entry opportunities the black coaches had, and how many signings were made by the clubs during the Brazilian championship for each season.
We also analyzed in-depth interviews with three coaches who declared themselves black (Marques and Brito, 2018). The criteria used to choose the interviewees prioritized their importance in the Brazilian football scene. Why only three? First of all, we encountered several difficulties in finding coaches who declared themselves to be black. We were often surprised by some coaches' statements, who, in our view, had the black phenotype, but they consider themselves white. Therefore, they were excluded from the interviews. Second, due to the extension of the Brazilian territory, we concentrated on the state of Rio de Janeiro, which received the largest contingent of black slaves in Brazil. Third, we looked for black coaches who had won a prestigious competition in Brazil's main championships.
After the data collection, we pass the interpretation of the reports presented by the research subjects. In this way, we try to understand the general ideas, identifying the explicit and implicit content displayed in the interviews. We used the NVivo program to map the terms issued by respondents. With the defined rate, we observed the themes and sub-themes in the set of sentences.

Results and discussion

Presence of blacks in head coach's position
We see black participation in the head coach's position in Brazilian men's soccer championship series A, between 2008-2017. The data are per year of competition, with the number of opportunities given to non-black and black individuals holding the head coach's position in the clubs. Finally, it developed the percentage of occupation of this position by black and non-black individuals each year.
It turns out that the participation of black coaches is meager. The total number of entry opportunities in the position of head coach was 468 in ten years. This time-cut shows how the black professional was excluded from these employment opportunities in the country of soccer; in 468 job opportunities, only 16 times was the opportunity for black coaches. The distances between blacks and non-blacks in the fields of education, the labor market, justice, among others, result not only from past discrimination, from the heritage of the slave period, but also an active process of prejudices and stereotypes discriminatory procedures (Bento and Beghin, 2005).
Black coaches occupied only 3.41% of total opportunities, or less than 5%, while non-blacks had a chance to hold this position in 96.58% of cases. Here we find what Florestan Fernandes (2015) means in 'The Negro in the White World': disarticulation in the labor market, pauperization, and social disorganization.
Analyzing the seasons per year, we can see that in 2008, there were 51 opportunities, with 100% of the positions occupied by non-blacks. In 2009, there were 43 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 42 (97.8%), while blacks filled only one (2.2%), Jorge Luis Andrade da Silva, known as Andrade, champion of that season in which he commanded the Flamengo. Of the 55 opportunities in 2010, 100% were to non-blacks. In the previous season, the Flamengo was crowned champion with a black coach in command. In 2011, there were 45 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 44 (97.8%), while only one (2.2%) was filled by a black, Cristóvão Borges, from the Vasco da Gama. In 2012, there were 43 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 42 (97.8%), while blacks filled only one (2.2%), and again Cristóvão Borges by the Vasco da Gama. In 2013, there were 43 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 41 (95.3%) and two (4.7%) held by blacks, being Cristóvão Borges, Esporte Clube Bahia, and Jayme de Almeida, Flamengo. In 2014, there were 42 opportunities, of which 40 (95.3%) occupied by non-blacks and two (4.7%) filled by blacks, being Cristóvão Borges, of Fluminense Football Club, and Jayme de Almeida, in the Flamengo. In 2015, there were 51 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 48 (94.2%), while blacks filled three (5.8%), being Cristóvão Borges and Jayme de Almeida, both by the Flamengo and Hemerson Maria by the Joinville. In 2016, there were 51 opportunities, with 47 (92.2%) occupied by non-blacks, while blacks held four (7.8%), Jair Ventura for Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, Cristóvão Borges Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, Marcão for Fluminense Football Club and Roger Machado for Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense. In 2017, there were 44 opportunities, of which non-blacks occupied 42 (95.5%) while blacks occupied 2 (4.5%).

Interviews
We analyze the data collected through the in-depth interviews conducted with three black coaches. These interviews were obtained after the coaching of their teams on the edge of the playing field. There were no athletes or close leaders, which allowed for more in-depth interaction. Initially, the three coaches declared themselves blacks, and the age varied between 39 years and 57 years.

I am black, I am not white. I was raised in an environment mixed with whites and blacks walking together. I continue in this environment. I am 57 years old, and I have been in soccer for 34 years since I started working with soccer and not counting boy playing season. (Participant 1).

I am black, my childhood was yes in a black environment because of my family, but football allowed me to live in a mixed environment outside the family environment. Because I am a former soccer player who played football for almost 20 years of my life and had the opportunity to live with other people. (Participant 2).

I consider myself black. I live in a black environment, even because I am born and raised in a poor community. I have many black friends, and people who are color is complicated to achieve, so something in life, then that I see a soccer player and singer, the rest for you to get a space is tough to enter the social environment. (Participant 3).

The relationship that the interviewees built with the terms black and soccer were to emphasize that the environment in which they were created was of black families whose culture reflected specific characteristics and that impacted their education. Soccer has created opportunities for them to live in other environments, with other people and different cultures. However, one of the speeches points to the difficulties encountered by blacks in these new environments that soccer has provided.
Another idea that appears refers to each one's life experience; it is the term 'years'. The idea presented in the speeches was that the years experienced in soccer contributed to the fact that new environments outside the family environment could be accessed. 'My', 'white', and 'created' are the other three elements that appear in the interviewees' speech. 'My' is used to reinforce the terms' black', 'environment', and 'soccer' to show their experiences and development. The word 'white' appears to make explicit their perceptions that society makes distinctions between white and black environments.
It should be noted that two interviewees were professional soccer players, and obtained several titles in junior competitions while athletes, already in the professional, passed through several clubs in Brazil. Two have a higher education level with a background in Physical Education and specializations focused on soccer. However, of these, only one owns a soccer coach training course. In this first moment of the interviews, all emphasizing the difficulties that the blacks find in society. Regarding training, respondents reported the following:

I have an undergraduate and a specialization in soccer from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). I did some more than 2 or 3 courses, thereby the union, Brazilian Association of Soccer Coaches (ABTF), that made me more specific to soccer. (Participant 1).

I have a degree in physical education, I have a specialization in sports training and exercise physiology, as we talked about before I think about continuing the studies. (Participant 2).

My level of education is incomplete first degree, I did the training course, yes to be a coach. (Participant 3).

'Specialization', 'soccer', and 'courses' were the terms that stood out at this stage of the interviews, showing that there was concern about the technical improvement. Two interviewees received a degree in physical education and specialization; the third held a training course for a coach. If there is a lack of opportunities for black coaches, the reports indicate that it is not for lack of theoretical-practical knowledge, given the experience acquired as athletes and, later, with the continuation in the studies. The literature discusses the absence of blacks in the position of a football coach in elite clubs, one of the parameters for hiring these professionals is the sieve of the clubs' leaders.
When asked about the low representativeness of black individuals occupying the head coach's position in elite clubs, and if this phenomenon had any relation to racism, prejudice, and a need to implement affirmative action that could somehow modify the current situation, responses were as follows:

I worked with some black coaches, maybe eight or ten. I know many, I do not believe that I should have this need for quotas. I think one runs behind to study, seek to specialize, and arrange their opportunities as to the difficulty of hiring the guy to be black. I do not believe much, although we see that you count on the finger in Brazilian elite football. I think there are one or two, not much more than that. I do not know to tell you why I never stopped to think about this subject. I think it's a matter of fact understood. I think it's all a matter of a sudden, and the staff opts for other things. Suddenly they've experienced something inside the soccer, and they prefer not to take chances in this area, they go to the other side. Many of us see great players with proper training and have up to a leadership profile could be soccer coaches choose to work in another function managing, coordinating as a manager, and do not deepen in a coaching career. I think we have made good progress because the country is very open to this and we have observed the arrival of Africans to Brazil and unlike other countries in the world where there is even some resistance here people receive with great tranquility, with high receptivity, here we do not see it. (Participant 1).

I have worked with some head coaches, but there have been few, very few coaches and black leaders, but what I see, what I perceive is that generally the black who is ex-athlete and works with soccer he helps a lot behind the scenes, in the training of an athlete. It helps a lot give the training because you had that practical experience, but the figure of the representative thereof the main one is not one of the black ones. If you notice in the base category of all Brazil, former black athletes work but are not the central figure of the special commission; they are always there doing an important part but still there. I think a lot that the opportunities have to be for all of the same forms. I do not agree with a quota for merely being black. Because today the country has already evolved. Some blacks live in a social class who can study. So, I think that this question of quotas must be egalitarian, what instrument could be used to improve this access of ours, access to education? There you will say that I am contradictory, but no, I think it has to start from own black desire to seek, to study, to graduate, to improve their training but that people would accept you more if you go if I have the same training as another teacher, is another coach, yes they will choose another coach. The question is not just the quota; the issue is not only training but also how the country, as who will give you the opportunity, sees you. The big problem is that if you more black leaders, more black coaches, would increase the range of opportunity for us, as long as we do not have that we have to go looking, we can not let go of that (Participant 2).

I think it is difficult to change this in Brazil because it is an extreme resistance. We see Andrade, who was champion for Flamengo now a short time and has no space in Brazilian football. So, I quoted Andrade because it is recent, there are many others there like Lula Pereira. I already saw that I suffered racism too, understood, but changing this in Brazil is very difficult, very difficult indeed, and I think it very wrong to have a quota of black to study so it had to be a natural thing. I do not think I should have no laws even because we are all the same. (Participant 3).

Participants show us that they are aware of the low representativeness of black individuals occupying positions head coach in elite clubs. In the base categories, there are many black coaches. However, when they go to the main level, the situation changes. It noted in the speeches that former qualified black athletes end up opting to take up other positions behind the scenes. However, there is also recognition of the inequality of opportunities when the participant points out that if there are a black coach and others with similar resumes, the black coach will probably lose. The imaginary is that black has to be twice as good to get the job. We have found that black individuals' occupation of leadership positions is a factor that could substantially increase the entry of black individuals into coach positions. We hardly see blacks in high-ranking posts in companies, we rarely see the black individual as hired, and thus, we seldom see these individuals being hired to take positions of decision-making.
The reports confirm some studies conducted in Europe and Australian society. The Branbury (2013) study examined the extent and ways in which practices of institutional racism have disproportionately impacted on limiting access by minorities. The 'practices of institutional racism are underpinned by patterns of white hegemonic privilege embedded within the pre-existing core structures of decision-making bodies at the highest levels of football'. Maynard (2009) discussed aboriginal under-representation in Australian football. There is a combination that involves a racist government policy, which restricts the movement of Aboriginal people, which creates barriers to access to football, as the distance from indigenous reserves in many cases prevents the approach of soccer in favorable places.
Therefore, this social hierarchy overflows to the sports institutions, lowering the opportunities, placing the black who opts for the profession of coach on the margins of the market. One participant alluded to the case of coach Andrade, Brazilian champion in 2009, by the Clube de Regatas Flamengo, including receiving a prize of best coach of that year, and that later had no more space, even with the merits of the national conquest. Lula Pereira, another recognized coach and winner of the national championship did not have great opportunities in the elite of Brazilian soccer.
Despite the participants' recognition of the low representativeness and obstacles presented, highlighting the race issue for the lack of opportunities, all were emphatic in saying that they do not see the need to implement affirmative action. They emphasize that they do not think it right to have quotas so that the black individual can occupy the position of coach of professional soccer in the clubs of the Brazilian elite.
Maguire (1988) already pointed out that blacks suffer explicit and tacit discrimination and, in a way, he contested that football was a means of access to mobility for blacks.
However, stressing the need for equal opportunities for all individuals regardless of race, even knowing that blacks suffer from racism and prejudice, presents the ideal of equality for all. Recognizing to some extent, the disadvantage of blacks in the opportunities offered to this position, they also acknowledge the need for blacks' academic training. Therefore, for the professionals who participated in the present research, there is a low representation that occurs due to ethnic-racial questions answering the second question investigated, however, do not recognize that affirmative actions are necessary to rebalance the offer of opportunities for the blacks to occupy the position of coach in the elite clubs of Brazilian soccer.
The complexity of the ethnic-racial question does not only inhabit the Brazilian scene. The need to move away from on/off conceptions led Long and McNamee to seek a way to make the distinction between inexcusable racist behavior and behaviors that could be classified as excusable.
The reports collected from three soccer coaches in Brazil reflect that hiring black coaches is ethically excusable and, therefore, would not require actions that could mitigate the problem.
Despite recognizing the low representativeness and the obstacles to the black ones to occupy the position of a head coach in Brazilian soccer, they emphasized that do not see the necessity to implement affirmative actions.
The findings in the interviewed coaches' speeches contrast with the perceptions of black athletes and coaches found in the researched literature. Numerous soccer professionals in Brazil and abroad reported forethought accurately, neglect, and racist character behind the scenes (Abreu e Silva, 2016; Bradbury, 2013, 2019; Burdsey, 2011; Silva, 1998, 2002; Tonini, 2010). However, according to white players, coaches, leaders, and players, it is common to see black people's claims rejected because they are super sensitive to race. Some white rugby and cricket players acknowledged the legitimacy of these complaints, but there was no such recognition among football respondents, despite reports from black players acknowledged the legitimacy of these complaints. However, there was no such recognition among football respondents, despite reports from black players.
The argument is that everything is part of the game. Statements from white coaches Luiz Felipe Scolari (Felipão) and Dunga suggest that all this discussion is silly. Abreu and Silva (2016:37) transcribe a speech of Felipão and Dunga given to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo:

These cases of racism are stupid. We should not even discuss this. It is no use punishing, and the solution is to ignore (...). You can not be moral and talk about these people. This case has no resolution; these assholes will never learn.

Dunga, white player, during the Copa América of 2015 treats the racial issue as something commonplace, which is part of the game, he says:

I even think that I am afro-descendant, from so much that I caught, and I like to find. The guys look at me and say, 'Let's hit that one'. And they begin to beat me, without notion, with nothing. I do not like him,' and they start beating me.

'I even think I'm afro-descendant because I picked up and I like to catch'. Dunga is white, gaucho, of European origin. His speech reflects the representation he has of the blacks: black likes to catch. Although the discourse on ethnic-racial issues is dominated by a 'colorblind' racial ideology, since open dialogue on issues about racism has been denied in public, in many cases, it arises through jokes, humor, bullying as in the reports of Felipão and Dunga (Burdsey, 2011).
We could say that Felipão and Dunga are not malicious and do not have a typically racist character. However, their speeches reflect that racism is incarnated in the imaginary. There is a positive side to their lines: by stating that one should not debate racism or ridicule the discussion, they end up challenging and subverting dominant racial meanings. However, one can not neglect or minimize the negative aspects, since racism is not an extreme and marginal incident on the periphery of soccer. It is, in fact, a contumacious process of daily life and reproduces surreptitiously in society.
The interviewees' reports indicate that blacks tend to opt for less prestigious or behind-the-scenes activities since the difficulty of reaching higher posts is considerable. These perceptions are also reported in some studies (Silva, 2002, Silva and Votre, 2006).
However, we would like to disagree with that. The three coaches interviewed make up a sporadic group of black coaches who have gained space in the select Brazilian football scene. In this case, and similar cases in Brazilian society, very successful blacks start to reproduce a racist stereotype in the social imagination that embodies the idea that the successful black is a black with a white soul.
In the Brazilian literature of football, we have a classic book written by Mario Filho (1943 [1967]), in a passage, the author speaks one of the few black players in the history of the Fluminense Football Club, a club of the Brazilian elite. This player, named Robson, was once in an automobile with a white friend, who was driving the vehicle. At one point, the friend had to brake sharply, as a black couple crossed the street in front of the car. The friend shouted, "dirty, filthy blacks". Robson, a black individual, trying to calm his friend, said this pearl: "I was once black, and I know what this".
The speech of the coaches interviewed maintains that there is no need for affirmative policies to reduce inequality of access in Brazilian football. In this way, the possible black leaders in Brazilian football seem to reproduce the popular adage that blacks can only ascend if he ceases to be black; this greatly hinders the social movements needed to achieve social justice. The interviewees' discourse is anchored in the idea of ​​meritocracy, personal effort, individualism, that is, a white, right-wing, and discriminatory ideology.
Studies have demonstrated the need for an intersectional perspective on ethnic-racial relations in sport. The issues already at stake require complex thinking to analyze the processes of exclusion and inclusion in sport. The notion of meritocracy is one of the targets to be questioned. "In a racially structured arena, such as sports coaching, whiteness is often left unremarked for those racially privileged" (Rankin-Wright, Hylton and Norman, 2019: 13). What surprised us was the interviewees' lack of perception to act on the whiteness in sport management positions.
Bradbury's contribution is vital about the implementation of affirmative action measures, such as goal setting, cooperation, and quotas. For this author, these actions would significantly help to "open" access to suitably qualified qualifications, which could encourage federations to follow suit (Bradbury, 2013). However, we disagree with "it is much easier to break a glass ceiling by stamping from top to bottom than to drill from below". We think that there is no social justice without social movement. We mean that the glass ceiling does not will be broken from top to bottom if there is no active participation by those under the glass." By relying on an interviewee's speech to complete his study, Bradbury confirms that the dominated will always be waiting for a savior from above.
Sport and, in the case of this study, soccer, are like sounding boards for social problems, asymmetries, injustice. In many scenarios, soccer exposes serious conflicts that have not yet been noticed. It is both a place of resistance and oppression. We are on the side of those who advocate football as a space for social emancipation. Thus, the search for ways to reduce inequalities and social justice necessarily involves soccer (Long, Fletcher and Watson, 2017).

Conclusion
This paper aimed to identify the representativeness of the black in the head coach positions in elite clubs of the Brazilian championship of male soccer, as well as reflect on the Rooney Rule used in the NFL and the affirmative action policy in Brazil.
The time cut for this identification was from 2008 to 2017. In this period, we found that black individuals never occupied more than 7.8% of the opportunities offered, since the year in which black individuals held more opportunities was 2016, with four (7.8%) of the opportunities out of 51. However, one noted that even though the 2009 Brazilian championship was won by a team headed by a black head coach, Andrade, in 2010, no other black individual had the opportunity of the 55 offered. The most typical case is that of Andrade himself, who, even the Brazilian champions of 2009, never again had an opportunity in clubs of the elite of the Brazilian championship, putting in doubt the meritocracy and its system.
Many arguments can be raised in this case since his identification with Flamengo, his difficulty in diction, or even lack of openness with other clubs' leaders. However, the fact is that Andrade is a black with a spectacular curriculum, who sees his professional, economic and personal progress curtailed due to invisible, veiled and undeviating barriers to opportunities given to non-black individuals with less relevant curricula, as happens with so many other black individuals in society at large. This identification of representativity also brought the information that the black who had the most opportunity was Cristóvão Borges, who worked as a professional in six chances, having held the position in 2011/2012 in Vasco da Gama, 2013 in Bahia, 2014 in Fluminense, 2015 in Flamengo and 2016 in Corinthians. One noted that the Flamengo is the team that gave the most opportunities to black individuals in this time, five, Andrade in 2009, Jayme de Almeida in 2013/2014/2015, and finally, in 2015 Cristóvão Borges.
The NFL's Rooney rule has proven results; after the implementation of the rule in the NFL there was an increase of more than 100% in the participation of black coaches. The English Football Federation discusses the implementation of the same rule in Breton football, including having applied in the national team, in this way, two great sports powers recognize the necessity of the law.
During this study, a lot happened. However, we undertook to answer the three questions of the investigation proposed. Thus, we identified that the black coaches occupied only 3.41% of the total of opportunities, less than 5%, while non-blacks had a chance to hold this position in 96.58% of cases.
From this, we began to answer the other two questions and thus based on the arguments put forward by the participants answered the second question, since it was clear that there is an understanding of the weight of the ethnic-racial factor in the contracts made by the elite clubs of the Brazilian championship.
Two of the three study participants recognize that ethnic-racial barriers hinder their professional development, including explicit and veiled racism. As the research participant said, racism in Brazil often occurs in a veiled way, in a tone of play and irony. Racial prejudice is reproduced in sport, symbolic violence is present in the field of play and needs to be demystified because it is essential to the development of sports the aggregation of technical and tactical knowledge that the black individual can offer. Contrary to the arguments put forward by the Brazilian leaders, the NFL, when perceiving that this happened in their sport, used affirmative action to guarantee equal opportunities.
In this study, we intended to discuss aspects of excusable and inexcusable racism, according to Long and McNamee's contribution. However, we are unable to see the issue of level, because even racism that could be considered excusable brings about greater problems as this idea could convey a misperception. Every human being acts and makes decisions, even when he omits himself. We cannot believe that a person can have excusable racist behavior. All racism is inexcusable.
In Brazil, in the legal-social sphere, affirmative actions are used to try to equal opportunities between races, the most famous are the quota laws for entering the public university and for entering public office. However, there is no instrument to mitigate this imbalance in Brazilian sport, which, in our view, helps maintain the status quo. Thus, the difficulties encountered by black individuals in their ascension to the desired position will continue to exist and demand better professional training, great resignation, and resilience.
The position taken by the authors of this study is that there is a need for affirmative action for Brazilian football. However, these actions cannot come from the top down. Black coaches need to implement spaces of consensus for proposals to be sent to the National Congress. The time has passed for Brazil's policies, such as those that resulted in Rooney Rule, but this will not be effective without the active participation of black coaches.

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Conflict of interest
The Authors declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments
This work was only possible thanks to the Salgado de Oliveira University, which awarded a scholarship to the first author.