Lack of British Asians In Sport: Football Focus

This week I would like to discuss the lack of British Asians in British sport. I will focus on football in particular. Whenever England lose a football match there is always complaints of the lack of British talent in the sport. There are a huge number of Asian amateur leagues and I know several Asian guys that are more then capable of playing professional football at that level yet there is hardly any playing even in the top leagues. With the exception of a few players, such as 

Michael Chopra of Sunderland, Zesh Rehman- currently on loan to Blackpool from Queens Park Rangers and Harpal Singh- who started off at Leeds United but now plays in Ireland for Bohemians.

My Reasons For Lack Of Asians In Footie

There are several reasons for the lack of Asians in football, however I feel the main one is our parent’s generation and their ideologies. What I tend to find is that the majority of them emigrated to the UK and haven’t had easy lives, they did not have qualifications so they had to work hard to make a living. When it comes down to their children (us) they do not want us to go through the same hardships as they had to face. You can’t really blame them that.

Footballing Only For Dumb Folk?

I say this because football, like many sports requires a great deal of training and effort from a very early age, even if you are naturally gifted- you still need to condition yourself. See I do not think one can be exceptional enough at football to make it to professional level and at the same time be academically excellent. I don’t mean to be rude but you can see many footballers are usually, shall we say academically challeneged. British footballing legends such as George Best, Bobby Charlton and even modern greats like Steven Gerrad, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney never progressed their education beyond school or college. I do take note that a couple of these players come from a family with strong backgrounds in football, but the point I am trying to make is that it is either football or your education.

So as a young Asian boy growing up thinking- yes this is what I want to do, he goes to his dad and says “Dad, I want to play football” and the response he usually gets as Russell would put it is, “Son, come here, you say that again and somebody gonna get hurt, real bad.” Ok so not everyone hears that line, (If you don’t know about that line, seriously how have you not seen Russell Peters!) but it is more or less something along those lines that ultimately just means NO. They would rather we become doctors or business people because there is less risk of becoming successful enough to earn a decent living. Football for them is a gamble not worth taking the risk.

There are also various other reasons for the lack of Asians in football. The fact that there isn’t many Asians in football deters young Asians who do have that potential to make it, because they adopt an ‘I can’t make it either’ attitude. Some say there is racism towards brown people in the sport, however I do not have the authority to back these claims nor would it be possible for me to accurately research this further.

I think our generation will be more relaxed with their children and we will see much more Asian talent emerging in not just football but across all the major competitive sports. Watch out for Vadgama, the future number 7 of Manchester United!

Tribute to Obama – A true inspiration

I would like to congratulate to Barack Obama on becoming the first black president and a huge inspiration all over the world. I have never taken a great deal of interest in politics, but Obama managed to capture my attention and he did so to such an extent that I stayed awake until 5AM on the day of election to watch him claim his historic victory. He has been a great inspiration to me, not in the sense that I am going to campaign to become the first Asian prime minister- although another possible career route? Hmmm… Maybe not. His whole campaign and message of change has been inspiring. Change is something we could all do with sometimes, and having thought about it, I too have changed some aspects of my life which I believe is for the better. I hope he proves to be the leader that everyone hopes he will be and wish him all the best in his new position.

My career journey so far…

Finally just to keep you updated on my career journey I started off last week. It does not get more typical then this for an Asian boy but I may end up working in T-mobile part time, whilst continuing to find my graduate job. I was supposed to have an interview for what appears to be a great starting point for a career in marketing however it was cancelled and I have been informed it will take place sometime this week so I’m currently working on that. Until next time, stay safe!